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American Notes for General Circulation
by Charles Dickens
October, 1996 [Etext #675]
The Project Gutenberg Etext of American Notes, by Charles Dickens
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American Notes for General Circulation by Charles Dickens
Scanned and proofed by David Price
email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
American Notes for General Circulation
PREFACE TO THE FIRST CHEAP EDITION OF "AMERICAN NOTES"
IT is nearly eight years since this book was first published. I
present it, unaltered, in the Cheap Edition; and such of my
opinions as it expresses, are quite unaltered too.
My readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether the
influences and tendencies which I distrust in America, have any
existence not in my imagination. They can examine for themselves
whether there has been anything in the public career of that
country during these past eight years, or whether there is anything
in its present position, at home or abroad, which suggests that
those influences and tendencies really do exist. As they find the
fact, they will judge me. If they discern any evidences of wrong-
going in any direction that I have indicated, they will acknowledge
that I had reason in what I wrote. If they discern no such thing,
they will consider me altogether mistaken.
Prejudiced, I never have been otherwise than in favour of the
United States. No visitor can ever have set foot on those shores,
with a stronger faith in the Republic than I had, when I landed in
America.
I purposely abstain from extending these observations to any
length. I have nothing to defend, or to explain away. The truth
is the truth; and neither childish absurdities, nor unscrupulous
contradictions, can make it otherwise. The earth would still move
round the sun, though the whole Catholic Church said No.
I have many friends in America, and feel a grateful interest in the
country. To represent me as viewing it with ill-nature, animosity,
or partisanship, is merely to do a very foolish thing, which is
always a very easy one; and which I have disregarded for eight
years, and could disregard for eighty more.
LONDON, JUNE 22, 1850.
PREFACE TO THE "CHARLES DICKENS" EDITION OF "AMERICAN NOTES"
MY readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether the
influences and tendencies which I distrusted in America, had, at
that time, any existence but in my imagination. They can examine
for themselves whether there has been anything in the public career
of that country since, at home or abroad, which suggests that those
influences and tendencies really did exist. As they find the fact,
they will judge me. If they discern any evidences of wrong-going,
in any direction that I have indicated, they will acknowledge that
I had reason in what I wrote. If they discern no such indications,
they will consider me altogether mistaken - but not wilfully.
Prejudiced, I am not, and never have been, otherwise than in favour
of the United States. I have many friends in America, I feel a
grateful interest in the country, I hope and believe it will
successfully work out a problem of the highest importance to the
whole human race. To represent me as viewing AMERICA with ill-
nature, coldness, or animosity, is merely to do a very foolish
thing: which is always a very easy one.
CHAPTER I - GOING AWAY
I SHALL never forget the one-fourth serious and three-fourths
comical astonishment, with which, on the morning of the third of
January eighteen-hundred-and-forty-two, I opened the door of, and
put my head into, a 'state-room' on board the Britannia steam-
packet, twelve hundred tons burthen per register, bound for Halifax
and Boston, and carrying Her Majesty's mails.
That this state-room had been specially engaged for 'Charles
Dickens, Esquire, and Lady,' was rendered sufficiently clear even
to my scared intellect by a very small manuscript, announcing the
fact, which was pinned on a very flat quilt, covering a very thin
mattress, spread like a surgical plaster on a most inaccessible
shelf. But that this was the state-room concerning which Charles
Dickens, Esquire, and Lady, had held daily and nightly conferences
for at least four months preceding: that this could by any
possibility be that small snug chamber of the imagination, which
Charles Dickens, Esquire, with the spirit of prophecy strong upon
him, had always foretold would contain at least one little sofa,
and which his lady, with a modest yet most magnificent sense of its
limited dimensions, had from the first opined would not hold more
than two enormous portmanteaus in some odd corner out of sight
(portmanteaus which could now no more be got in at the door, not to
say stowed away, than a giraffe could be persuaded or forced into a
flower-pot): that this utterly impracticable, thoroughly hopeless,
and profoundly preposterous box, had the remotest reference to, or
connection with, those chaste and pretty, not to say gorgeous
little bowers, sketched by a masterly hand, in the highly varnished
lithographic plan hanging up in the agent's counting-house in the
city of London: that this room of state, in short, could be
anything but a pleasant fiction and cheerful jest of the captain's,
invented and put in practice for the better relish and enjoyment of
the real state-room presently to be disclosed:- these were truths
which I really could not, for the moment, bring my mind at all to
bear upon or comprehend. And I sat down upon a kind of horsehair
slab, or perch, of which there were two within; and looked, without
any expression of countenance whatever, at some friends who had
come on board with us, and who were crushing their faces into all
manner of shapes by endeavouring to squeeze them through the small
doorway.
We had experienced a pretty smart shock before coming below, which,
but that we were the most sanguine people living, might have
prepared us for the worst. The imaginative artist to whom I have
already made allusion, has depicted in the same great work, a
chamber of almost interminable perspective, furnished, as Mr.
Robins would say, in a style of more than Eastern splendour, and
filled (but not inconveniently so) with groups of ladies and
gentlemen, in the very highest state of enjoyment and vivacity.
Before descending into the bowels of the ship, we had passed from
the deck into a long narrow apartment, not unlike a gigantic hearse
with windows in the sides; having at the upper end a melancholy
stove, at which three or four chilly stewards were warming their
hands; while on either side, extending down its whole dreary
length, was a long, long table, over each of which a rack, fixed to
the low roof, and stuck full of drinking-glasses and cruet-stands,
hinted dismally at rolling seas and heavy weather. I had not at
that time seen the ideal presentment of this chamber which has
since gratified me so much, but I observed that one of our friends
who had made the arrangements for our voyage, turned pale on
entering, retreated on the friend behind him., smote his forehead
involuntarily, and said below his breath, 'Impossible! it cannot
be!' or words to that effect. He recovered himself however by a
great effort, and after a preparatory cough or two, cried, with a
ghastly smile which is still before me, looking at the same time
round the walls, 'Ha! the breakfast-room, steward - eh?' We all
foresaw what the answer must be: we knew the agony he suffered.
He had often spoken of THE SALOON; had taken in and lived upon the
pictorial idea; had usually given us to understand, at home, that
to form a just conception of it, it would be necessary to multiply
the size and furniture of an ordinary drawing-room by seven, and
then fall short of the reality. When the man in reply avowed the
truth; the blunt, remorseless, naked truth; 'This is the saloon,
sir' - he actually reeled beneath the blow.
In persons who were so soon to part, and interpose between their
else daily communication the formidable barrier of many thousand
miles of stormy space, and who were for that reason anxious to cast
no other cloud, not even the passing shadow of a moment's
disappointment or discomfiture, upon the short interval of happy
companionship that yet remained to them - in persons so situated,
the natural transition from these first surprises was obviously
into peals of hearty laughter, and I can report that I, for one,
being still seated upon the slab or perch before mentioned, roared
outright until the vessel rang again. Thus, in less than two
minutes after coming upon it for the first time, we all by common
consent agreed that this state-room was the pleasantest and most
facetious and capital contrivance possible; and that to have had it
one inch larger, would have been quite a disagreeable and
deplorable state of things. And with this; and with showing how, -
by very nearly closing the door, and twining in and out like
serpents, and by counting the little washing slab as standing-room,
- we could manage to insinuate four people into it, all at one
time; and entreating each other to observe how very airy it was (in
dock), and how there was a beautiful port-hole which could be kept
open all day (weather permitting), and how there was quite a large
bull's-eye just over the looking-glass which would render shaving a
perfectly easy and delightful process (when the ship didn't roll
too much); we arrived, at last, at the unanimous conclusion that it
was rather spacious than otherwise: though I do verily believe
that, deducting the two berths, one above the other, than which
nothing smaller for sleeping in was ever made except coffins, it
was no bigger than one of those hackney cabriolets which have the
door behind, and shoot their fares out, like sacks of coals, upon
the pavement.
Having settled this point to the perfect satisfaction of all
parties, concerned and unconcerned, we sat down round the fire in
the ladies' cabin - just to try the effect. It was rather dark,
certainly; but somebody said, 'of course it would be light, at
sea,' a proposition to which we all assented; echoing 'of course,
of course;' though it would be exceedingly difficult to say why we
thought so. I remember, too, when we had discovered and exhausted
another topic of consolation in the circumstance of this ladies'
cabin adjoining our state-room, and the consequently immense
feasibility of sitting there at all times and seasons, and had
fallen into a momentary silence, leaning our faces on our hands and
looking at the fire, one of our party said, with the solemn air of
a man who had made a discovery, 'What a relish mulled claret will
have down here!' which appeared to strike us all most forcibly; as
though there were something spicy and high-flavoured in cabins,
which essentially improved that composition, and rendered it quite
incapable of perfection anywhere else.
There was a stewardess, too, actively engaged in producing clean
sheets and table-cloths from the very entrails of the sofas, and
from unexpected lockers, of such artful mechanism, that it made
one's head ache to see them opened one after another, and rendered
it quite a distracting circumstance to follow her proceedings, and
to find that every nook and corner and individual piece of
furniture was something else besides what it pretended to be, and
was a mere trap and deception and place of secret stowage, whose
ostensible purpose was its least useful one.
God bless that stewardess for her piously fraudulent account of
January voyages! God bless her for her clear recollection of the
companion passage of last year, when nobody was ill, and everybody
dancing from morning to night, and it was 'a run' of twelve days,
and a piece of the purest frolic, and delight, and jollity! All
happiness be with her for her bright face and her pleasant Scotch
tongue, which had sounds of old Home in it for my fellow-traveller;
and for her predictions of fair winds and fine weather (all wrong,
or I shouldn't be half so fond of her); and for the ten thousand
small fragments of genuine womanly tact, by which, without piecing
them elaborately together, and patching them up into shape and form
and case and pointed application, she nevertheless did plainly show
that all young mothers on one side of the Atlantic were near and
close at hand to their little children left upon the other; and
that what seemed to the uninitiated a serious journey, was, to
those who were in the secret, a mere frolic, to be sung about and
whistled at! Light be her heart, and gay her merry eyes, for
years!
The state-room had grown pretty fast; but by this time it had
expanded into something quite bulky, and almost boasted a bay-
window to view the sea from. So we went upon deck again in high
spirits; and there, everything was in such a state of bustle and
active preparation, that the blood quickened its pace, and whirled
through one's veins on that clear frosty morning with involuntary
mirthfulness. For every gallant ship was riding slowly up and
down, and every little boat was splashing noisily in the water; and
knots of people stood upon the wharf, gazing with a kind of 'dread
delight' on the far-famed fast American steamer; and one party of
men were 'taking in the milk,' or, in other words, getting the cow
on board; and another were filling the icehouses to the very throat
with fresh provisions; with butchers'-meat and garden-stuff, pale
sucking-pigs, calves' heads in scores, beef, veal, and pork, and
poultry out of all proportion; and others were coiling ropes and
busy with oakum yarns; and others were lowering heavy packages into
the hold; and the purser's head was barely visible as it loomed in
a state, of exquisite perplexity from the midst of a vast pile of
passengers' luggage; and there seemed to be nothing going on
anywhere, or uppermost in the mind of anybody, but preparations for
this mighty voyage. This, with the bright cold sun, the bracing
air, the crisply-curling water, the thin white crust of morning ice
upon the decks which crackled with a sharp and cheerful sound
beneath the lightest tread, was irresistible. And when, again upon
the shore, we turned and saw from the vessel's mast her name
signalled in flags of joyous colours, and fluttering by their side
the beautiful American banner with its stars and stripes, - the
long three thousand miles and more, and, longer still, the six
whole months of absence, so dwindled and faded, that the ship had
gone out and come home again, and it was broad spring already in
the Coburg Dock at Liverpool.
I have not inquired among my medical acquaintance, whether Turtle,
and cold Punch, with Hock, Champagne, and Claret, and all the
slight et cetera usually included in an unlimited order for a good
dinner - especially when it is left to the liberal construction of
my faultless friend, Mr. Radley, of the Adelphi Hotel - are
peculiarly calculated to suffer a sea-change; or whether a plain
mutton-chop, and a glass or two of sherry, would be less likely of
conversion into foreign and disconcerting material. My own opinion
is, that whether one is discreet or indiscreet in these
particulars, on the eve of a sea-voyage, is a matter of little
consequence; and that, to use a common phrase, 'it comes to very
much the same thing in the end.' Be this as it may, I know that
the dinner of that day was undeniably perfect; that it comprehended
all these items, and a great many more; and that we all did ample
justice to it. And I know too, that, bating a certain tacit
avoidance of any allusion to to-morrow; such as may be supposed to
prevail between delicate-minded turnkeys, and a sensitive prisoner
who is to be hanged next morning; we got on very well, and, all
things considered, were merry enough.
When the morning - THE morning - came, and we met at breakfast, it
was curious to see how eager we all were to prevent a moment's
pause in the conversation, and how astoundingly gay everybody was:
the forced spirits of each member of the little party having as
much likeness to his natural mirth, as hot-house peas at five
guineas the quart, resemble in flavour the growth of the dews, and
air, and rain of Heaven. But as one o'clock, the hour for going
aboard, drew near, this volubility dwindled away by little and
little, despite the most persevering efforts to the contrary, until
at last, the matter being now quite desperate, we threw off all
disguise; openly speculated upon where we should be this time to-
morrow, this time next day, and so forth; and entrusted a vast
number of messages to those who intended returning to town that
night, which were to be delivered at home and elsewhere without
fail, within the very shortest possible space of time after the
arrival of the railway train at Euston Square. And commissions and
remembrances do so crowd upon one at such a time, that we were
still busied with this employment when we found ourselves fused, as
it were, into a dense conglomeration of passengers and passengers'
friends and passengers' luggage, all jumbled together on the deck
of a small steamboat, and panting and snorting off to the packet,
which had worked out of dock yesterday afternoon and was now lying
at her moorings in the river.
And there she is! all eyes are turned to where she lies, dimly
discernible through the gathering fog of the early winter
afternoon; every finger is pointed in the same direction; and
murmurs of interest and admiration - as 'How beautiful she looks!'
'How trim she is!' - are heard on every side. Even the lazy
gentleman with his hat on one side and his hands in his pockets,
who has dispensed so much consolation by inquiring with a yawn of
another gentleman whether he is 'going across' - as if it were a
ferry - even he condescends to look that way, and nod his head, as
who should say, 'No mistake about THAT:' and not even the sage Lord
Burleigh in his nod, included half so much as this lazy gentleman
of might who has made the passage (as everybody on board has found
out already; it's impossible to say how) thirteen times without a
single accident! There is another passenger very much wrapped-up,
who has been frowned down by the rest, and morally trampled upon
and crushed, for presuming to inquire with a timid interest how
long it is since the poor President went down. He is standing
close to the lazy gentleman, and says with a faint smile that he
believes She is a very strong Ship; to which the lazy gentleman,
looking first in his questioner's eye and then very hard in the
wind's, answers unexpectedly and ominously, that She need be. Upon
this the lazy gentleman instantly falls very low in the popular
estimation, and the passengers, with looks of defiance, whisper to
each other that he is an ass, and an impostor, and clearly don't
know anything at all about it.
But we are made fast alongside the packet, whose huge red funnel is
smoking bravely, giving rich promise of serious intentions.
Packing-cases, portmanteaus, carpet-bags, and boxes, are already
passed from hand to hand, and hauled on board with breathless
rapidity. The officers, smartly dressed, are at the gangway
handing the passengers up the side, and hurrying the men. In five
minutes' time, the little steamer is utterly deserted, and the
packet is beset and over-run by its late freight, who instantly
pervade the whole ship, and are to be met with by the dozen in
every nook and corner: swarming down below with their own baggage,
and stumbling over other people's; disposing themselves comfortably
in wrong cabins, and creating a most horrible confusion by having
to turn out again; madly bent upon opening locked doors, and on
forcing a passage into all kinds of out-of-the-way places where
there is no thoroughfare; sending wild stewards, with elfin hair,
to and fro upon the breezy decks on unintelligible errands,
impossible of execution: and in short, creating the most
extraordinary and bewildering tumult. In the midst of all this,
the lazy gentleman, who seems to have no luggage of any kind - not
so much as a friend, even - lounges up and down the hurricane deck,
coolly puffing a cigar; and, as this unconcerned demeanour again
exalts him in the opinion of those who have leisure to observe his
proceedings, every time he looks up at the masts, or down at the
decks, or over the side, they look there too, as wondering whether
he sees anything wrong anywhere, and hoping that, in case he
should, he will have the goodness to mention it.
What have we here? The captain's boat! and yonder the captain
himself. Now, by all our hopes and wishes, the very man he ought
to be! A well-made, tight-built, dapper little fellow; with a
ruddy face, which is a letter of invitation to shake him by both
hands at once; and with a clear, blue honest eye, that it does one
good to see one's sparkling image in. 'Ring the bell!' 'Ding,
ding, ding!' the very bell is in a hurry. 'Now for the shore -
who's for the shore?' - 'These gentlemen, I am sorry to say.' They
are away, and never said, Good b'ye. Ah now they wave it from the
little boat. 'Good b'ye! Good b'ye!' Three cheers from them;
three more from us; three more from them: and they are gone.
To and fro, to and fro, to and fro again a hundred times! This
waiting for the latest mail-bags is worse than all. If we could
have gone off in the midst of that last burst, we should have
started triumphantly: but to lie here, two hours and more in the
damp fog, neither staying at home nor going abroad, is letting one
gradually down into the very depths of dulness and low spirits. A
speck in the mist, at last! That's something. It is the boat we
wait for! That's more to the purpose. The captain appears on the
paddle-box with his speaking trumpet; the officers take their
stations; all hands are on the alert; the flagging hopes of the
passengers revive; the cooks pause in their savoury work, and look
out with faces full of interest. The boat comes alongside; the
bags are dragged in anyhow, and flung down for the moment anywhere.
Three cheers more: and as the first one rings upon our ears, the
vessel throbs like a strong giant that has just received the breath
of life; the two great wheels turn fiercely round for the first
time; and the noble ship, with wind and tide astern, breaks proudly
through the lashed and roaming water.
CHAPTER II - THE PASSAGE OUT
WE all dined together that day; and a rather formidable party we
were: no fewer than eighty-six strong. The vessel being pretty
deep in the water, with all her coals on board and so many
passengers, and the weather being calm and quiet, there was but
little motion; so that before the dinner was half over, even those
passengers who were most distrustful of themselves plucked up
amazingly; and those who in the morning had returned to the
universal question, 'Are you a good sailor?' a very decided
negative, now either parried the inquiry with the evasive reply,
'Oh! I suppose I'm no worse than anybody else;' or, reckless of all
moral obligations, answered boldly 'Yes:' and with some irritation
too, as though they would add, 'I should like to know what you see
in ME, sir, particularly, to justify suspicion!'
Notwithstanding this high tone of courage and confidence, I could
not but observe that very few remained long over their wine; and
that everybody had an unusual love of the open air; and that the
favourite and most coveted seats were invariably those nearest to
the door. The tea-table, too, was by no means as well attended as
the dinner-table; and there was less whist-playing than might have
been expected. Still, with the exception of one lady, who had
retired with some precipitation at dinner-time, immediately after
being assisted to the finest cut of a very yellow boiled leg of
mutton with very green capers, there were no invalids as yet; and
walking, and smoking, and drinking of brandy-and-water (but always
in the open air), went on with unabated spirit, until eleven
o'clock or thereabouts, when 'turning in' - no sailor of seven
hours' experience talks of going to bed - became the order of the
night. The perpetual tramp of boot-heels on the decks gave place
to a heavy silence, and the whole human freight was stowed away
below, excepting a very few stragglers, like myself, who were
probably, like me, afraid to go there.
To one unaccustomed to such scenes, this is a very striking time on
shipboard. Afterwards, and when its novelty had long worn off, it
never ceased to have a peculiar interest and charm for me. The
gloom through which the great black mass holds its direct and
certain course; the rushing water, plainly heard, but dimly seen;
the broad, white, glistening track, that follows in the vessel's
wake; the men on the look-out forward, who would be scarcely
visible against the dark sky, but for their blotting out some score
of glistening stars; the helmsman at the wheel, with the
illuminated card before him, shining, a speck of light amidst the
darkness, like something sentient and of Divine intelligence; the
melancholy sighing of the wind through block, and rope, and chain;
the gleaming forth of light from every crevice, nook, and tiny
piece of glass about the decks, as though the ship were filled with
fire in hiding, ready to burst through any outlet, wild with its
resistless power of death and ruin. At first, too, and even when
the hour, and all the objects it exalts, have come to be familiar,
it is difficult, alone and thoughtful, to hold them to their proper
shapes and forms. They change with the wandering fancy; assume the
semblance of things left far away; put on the well-remembered
aspect of favourite places dearly loved; and even people them with
shadows. Streets, houses, rooms; figures so like their usual
occupants, that they have startled me by their reality, which far
exceeded, as it seemed to me, all power of mine to conjure up the
absent; have, many and many a time, at such an hour, grown suddenly
out of objects with whose real look, and use, and purpose, I was as
well acquainted as with my own two hands.
My own two hands, and feet likewise, being very cold, however, on
this particular occasion, I crept below at midnight. It was not
exactly comfortable below. It was decidedly close; and it was
impossible to be unconscious of the presence of that extraordinary
compound of strange smells, which is to be found nowhere but on
board ship, and which is such a subtle perfume that it seems to
enter at every pore of the skin, and whisper of the hold. Two
passengers' wives (one of them my own) lay already in silent
agonies on the sofa; and one lady's maid (MY lady's) was a mere
bundle on the floor, execrating her destiny, and pounding her curl-
papers among the stray boxes. Everything sloped the wrong way:
which in itself was an aggravation scarcely to be borne. I had
left the door open, a moment before, in the bosom of a gentle
declivity, and, when I turned to shut it, it was on the summit of a
lofty eminence. Now every plank and timber creaked, as if the ship
were made of wicker-work; and now crackled, like an enormous fire
of the driest possible twigs. There was nothing for it but bed; so
I went to bed.
It was pretty much the same for the next two days, with a tolerably
fair wind and dry weather. I read in bed (but to this hour I don't
know what) a good deal; and reeled on deck a little; drank cold
brandy-and-water with an unspeakable disgust, and ate hard biscuit
perseveringly: not ill, but going to be.
It is the third morning. I am awakened out of my sleep by a dismal
shriek from my wife, who demands to know whether there's any
danger. I rouse myself, and look out of bed. The water-jug is
plunging and leaping like a lively dolphin; all the smaller
articles are afloat, except my shoes, which are stranded on a
carpet-bag, high and dry, like a couple of coal-barges. Suddenly I
see them spring into the air, and behold the looking-glass, which
is nailed to the wall, sticking fast upon the ceiling. At the same
time the door entirely disappears, and a new one is opened in the
floor. Then I begin to comprehend that the state-room is standing
on its head.
Before it is possible to make any arrangement at all compatible
with this novel state of things, the ship rights. Before one can
say 'Thank Heaven!' she wrongs again. Before one can cry she IS
wrong, she seems to have started forward, and to be a creature
actually running of its own accord, with broken knees and failing
legs, through every variety of hole and pitfall, and stumbling
constantly. Before one can so much as wonder, she takes a high
leap into the air. Before she has well done that, she takes a deep
dive into the water. Before she has gained the surface, she throws
a summerset. The instant she is on her legs, she rushes backward.
And so she goes on staggering, heaving, wrestling, leaping, diving,
jumping, pitching, throbbing, rolling, and rocking: and going
through all these movements, sometimes by turns, and sometimes
altogether: until one feels disposed to roar for mercy.
A steward passes. 'Steward!' 'Sir?' 'What IS the matter? what DO
you call this?' 'Rather a heavy sea on, sir, and a head-wind.'
A head-wind! Imagine a human face upon the vessel's prow, with
fifteen thousand Samsons in one bent upon driving her back, and
hitting her exactly between the eyes whenever she attempts to
advance an inch. Imagine the ship herself, with every pulse and
artery of her huge body swollen and bursting under this
maltreatment, sworn to go on or die. Imagine the wind howling, the
sea roaring, the rain beating: all in furious array against her.
Picture the sky both dark and wild, and the clouds, in fearful
sympathy with the waves, making another ocean in the air. Add to
all this, the clattering on deck and down below; the tread of
hurried feet; the loud hoarse shouts of seamen; the gurgling in and
out of water through the scuppers; with, every now and then, the
striking of a heavy sea upon the planks above, with the deep, dead,
heavy sound of thunder heard within a vault; - and there is the
head-wind of that January morning.
I say nothing of what may be called the domestic noises of the
ship: such as the breaking of glass and crockery, the tumbling
down of stewards, the gambols, overhead, of loose casks and truant
dozens of bottled porter, and the very remarkable and far from
exhilarating sounds raised in their various state-rooms by the
seventy passengers who were too ill to get up to breakfast. I say
nothing of them: for although I lay listening to this concert for
three or four days, I don't think I heard it for more than a
quarter of a minute, at the expiration of which term, I lay down
again, excessively sea-sick.
Not sea-sick, be it understood, in the ordinary acceptation of the
term: I wish I had been: but in a form which I have never seen or
heard described, though I have no doubt it is very common. I lay
there, all the day long, quite coolly and contentedly; with no
sense of weariness, with no desire to get up, or get better, or
take the air; with no curiosity, or care, or regret, of any sort or
degree, saving that I think I can remember, in this universal
indifference, having a kind of lazy joy - of fiendish delight, if
anything so lethargic can be dignified with the title - in the fact
of my wife being too ill to talk to me. If I may be allowed to
illustrate my state of mind by such an example, I should say that I
was exactly in the condition of the elder Mr. Willet, after the
incursion of the rioters into his bar at Chigwell. Nothing would
have surprised me. If, in the momentary illumination of any ray of
intelligence that may have come upon me in the way of thoughts of
Home, a goblin postman, with a scarlet coat and bell, had come into
that little kennel before me, broad awake in broad day, and,
apologising for being damp through walking in the sea, had handed
me a letter directed to myself, in familiar characters, I am
certain I should not have felt one atom of astonishment: I should
have been perfectly satisfied. If Neptune himself had walked in,
with a toasted shark on his trident, I should have looked upon the
event as one of the very commonest everyday occurrences.
Once - once - I found myself on deck. I don't know how I got
there, or what possessed me to go there, but there I was; and
completely dressed too, with a huge pea-coat on, and a pair of
boots such as no weak man in his senses could ever have got into.
I found myself standing, when a gleam of consciousness came upon
me, holding on to something. I don't know what. I think it was
the boatswain: or it may have been the pump: or possibly the cow.
I can't say how long I had been there; whether a day or a minute.
I recollect trying to think about something (about anything in the
whole wide world, I was not particular) without the smallest
effect. I could not even make out which was the sea, and which the
sky, for the horizon seemed drunk, and was flying wildly about in
all directions. Even in that incapable state, however, I
recognised the lazy gentleman standing before me: nautically clad
in a suit of shaggy blue, with an oilskin hat. But I was too
imbecile, although I knew it to be he, to separate him from his
dress; and tried to call him, I remember, PILOT. After another
interval of total unconsciousness, I found he had gone, and
recognised another figure in its place. It seemed to wave and
fluctuate before me as though I saw it reflected in an unsteady
looking-glass; but I knew it for the captain; and such was the
cheerful influence of his face, that I tried to smile: yes, even
then I tried to smile. I saw by his gestures that he addressed me;
but it was a long time before I could make out that he remonstrated
against my standing up to my knees in water - as I was; of course I
don't know why. I tried to thank him, but couldn't. I could only
point to my boots - or wherever I supposed my boots to be - and say
in a plaintive voice, 'Cork soles:' at the same time endeavouring,
I am told, to sit down in the pool. Finding that I was quite
insensible, and for the time a maniac, he humanely conducted me
below.
There I remained until I got better: suffering, whenever I was
recommended to eat anything, an amount of anguish only second to
that which is said to be endured by the apparently drowned, in the
process of restoration to life. One gentleman on board had a
letter of introduction to me from a mutual friend in London. He
sent it below with his card, on the morning of the head-wind; and I
was long troubled with the idea that he might be up, and well, and
a hundred times a day expecting me to call upon him in the saloon.
I imagined him one of those cast-iron images - I will not call them
men - who ask, with red faces, and lusty voices, what sea-sickness
means, and whether it really is as bad as it is represented to be.
This was very torturing indeed; and I don't think I ever felt such
perfect gratification and gratitude of heart, as I did when I heard
from the ship's doctor that he had been obliged to put a large
mustard poultice on this very gentleman's stomach. I date my
recovery from the receipt of that intelligence.
It was materially assisted though, I have no doubt, by a heavy gale
of wind, which came slowly up at sunset, when we were about ten
days out, and raged with gradually increasing fury until morning,
saving that it lulled for an hour a little before midnight. There
was something in the unnatural repose of that hour, and in the
after gathering of the storm, so inconceivably awful and
tremendous, that its bursting into full violence was almost a
relief.
The labouring of the ship in the troubled sea on this night I shall
never forget. 'Will it ever be worse than this?' was a question I
had often heard asked, when everything was sliding and bumping
about, and when it certainly did seem difficult to comprehend the
possibility of anything afloat being more disturbed, without
toppling over and going down. But what the agitation of a steam-
vessel is, on a bad winter's night in the wild Atlantic, it is
impossible for the most vivid imagination to conceive. To say that
she is flung down on her side in the waves, with her masts dipping
into them, and that, springing up again, she rolls over on the
other side, until a heavy sea strikes her with the noise of a
hundred great guns, and hurls her back - that she stops, and
staggers, and shivers, as though stunned, and then, with a violent
throbbing at her heart, darts onward like a monster goaded into
madness, to be beaten down, and battered, and crushed, and leaped
on by the angry sea - that thunder, lightning, hail, and rain, and
wind, are all in fierce contention for the mastery - that every
plank has its groan, every nail its shriek, and every drop of water
in the great ocean its howling voice - is nothing. To say that all
is grand, and all appalling and horrible in the last degree, is
nothing. Words cannot express it. Thoughts cannot convey it.
Only a dream can call it up again, in all its fury, rage, and
passion.
And yet, in the very midst of these terrors, I was placed in a
situation so exquisitely ridiculous, that even then I had as strong
a sense of its absurdity as I have now, and could no more help
laughing than I can at any other comical incident, happening under
circumstances the most favourable to its enjoyment. About midnight
we shipped a sea, which forced its way through the skylights, burst
open the doors above, and came raging and roaring down into the
ladies' cabin, to the unspeakable consternation of my wife and a
little Scotch lady - who, by the way, had previously sent a message
to the captain by the stewardess, requesting him, with her
compliments, to have a steel conductor immediately attached to the
top of every mast, and to the chimney, in order that the ship might
not be struck by lightning. They and the handmaid before
mentioned, being in such ecstasies of fear that I scarcely knew
what to do with them, I naturally bethought myself of some
restorative or comfortable cordial; and nothing better occurring to
me, at the moment, than hot brandy-and-water, I procured a tumbler
full without delay. It being impossible to stand or sit without
holding on, they were all heaped together in one corner of a long
sofa - a fixture extending entirely across the cabin - where they
clung to each other in momentary expectation of being drowned.
When I approached this place with my specific, and was about to
administer it with many consolatory expressions to the nearest
sufferer, what was my dismay to see them all roll slowly down to
the other end! And when I staggered to that end, and held out the
glass once more, how immensely baffled were my good intentions by
the ship giving another lurch, and their all rolling back again! I
suppose I dodged them up and down this sofa for at least a quarter
of an hour, without reaching them once; and by the time I did catch
them, the brandy-and-water was diminished, by constant spilling, to
a teaspoonful. To complete the group, it is necessary to recognise
in this disconcerted dodger, an individual very pale from sea-
sickness, who had shaved his beard and brushed his hair, last, at
Liverpool: and whose only article of dress (linen not included)
were a pair of dreadnought trousers; a blue jacket, formerly
admired upon the Thames at Richmond; no stockings; and one slipper.
Of the outrageous antics performed by that ship next morning; which
made bed a practical joke, and getting up, by any process short of
falling out, an impossibility; I say nothing. But anything like
the utter dreariness and desolation that met my eyes when I
literally 'tumbled up' on deck at noon, I never saw. Ocean and sky
were all of one dull, heavy, uniform, lead colour. There was no
extent of prospect even over the dreary waste that lay around us,
for the sea ran high, and the horizon encompassed us like a large
black hoop. Viewed from the air, or some tall bluff on shore, it
would have been imposing and stupendous, no doubt; but seen from
the wet and rolling decks, it only impressed one giddily and
painfully. In the gale of last night the life-boat had been
crushed by one blow of the sea like a walnut-shell; and there it
hung dangling in the air: a mere faggot of crazy boards. The
planking of the paddle-boxes had been torn sheer away. The wheels
were exposed and bare; and they whirled and dashed their spray
about the decks at random. Chimney, white with crusted salt;
topmasts struck; storm-sails set; rigging all knotted, tangled,
wet, and drooping: a gloomier picture it would be hard to look
upon.
I was now comfortably established by courtesy in the ladies' cabin,
where, besides ourselves, there were only four other passengers.
First, the little Scotch lady before mentioned, on her way to join
her husband at New York, who had settled there three years before.
Secondly and thirdly, an honest young Yorkshireman, connected with
some American house; domiciled in that same city, and carrying
thither his beautiful young wife to whom he had been married but a
fortnight, and who was the fairest specimen of a comely English
country girl I have ever seen. Fourthy, fifthly, and lastly,
another couple: newly married too, if one might judge from the
endearments they frequently interchanged: of whom I know no more
than that they were rather a mysterious, run-away kind of couple;
that the lady had great personal attractions also; and that the
gentleman carried more guns with him than Robinson Crusoe, wore a
shooting-coat, and had two great dogs on board. On further
consideration, I remember that he tried hot roast pig and bottled
ale as a cure for sea-sickness; and that he took these remedies
(usually in bed) day after day, with astonishing perseverance. I
may add, for the information of the curious, that they decidedly
failed.
The weather continuing obstinately and almost unprecedentedly bad,
we usually straggled into this cabin, more or less faint and
miserable, about an hour before noon, and lay down on the sofas to
recover; during which interval, the captain would look in to
communicate the state of the wind, the moral certainty of its
changing to-morrow (the weather is always going to improve to-
morrow, at sea), the vessel's rate of sailing, and so forth.
Observations there were none to tell us of, for there was no sun to
take them by. But a description of one day will serve for all the
rest. Here it is.
The captain being gone, we compose ourselves to read, if the place
be light enough; and if not, we doze and talk alternately. At one,
a bell rings, and the stewardess comes down with a steaming dish of
baked potatoes, and another of roasted apples; and plates of pig's
face, cold ham, salt beef; or perhaps a smoking mess of rare hot
collops. We fall to upon these dainties; eat as much as we can (we
have great appetites now); and are as long as possible about it.
If the fire will burn (it WILL sometimes) we are pretty cheerful.
If it won't, we all remark to each other that it's very cold, rub
our hands, cover ourselves with coats and cloaks, and lie down
again to doze, talk, and read (provided as aforesaid), until
dinner-time. At five, another bell rings, and the stewardess
reappears with another dish of potatoes - boiled this time - and
store of hot meat of various kinds: not forgetting the roast pig,
to be taken medicinally. We sit down at table again (rather more
cheerfully than before); prolong the meal with a rather mouldy
dessert of apples, grapes, and oranges; and drink our wine and
brandy-and-water. The bottles and glasses are still upon the
table, and the oranges and so forth are rolling about according to
their fancy and the ship's way, when the doctor comes down, by
special nightly invitation, to join our evening rubber:
immediately on whose arrival we make a party at whist, and as it is
a rough night and the cards will not lie on the cloth, we put the
tricks in our pockets as we take them. At whist we remain with
exemplary gravity (deducting a short time for tea and toast) until
eleven o'clock, or thereabouts; when the captain comes down again,
in a sou'-wester hat tied under his chin, and a pilot-coat: making
the ground wet where he stands. By this time the card-playing is
over, and the bottles and glasses are again upon the table; and
after an hour's pleasant conversation about the ship, the
passengers, and things in general, the captain (who never goes to
bed, and is never out of humour) turns up his coat collar for the
deck again; shakes hands all round; and goes laughing out into the
weather as merrily as to a birthday party.
As to daily news, there is no dearth of that commodity. This
passenger is reported to have lost fourteen pounds at Vingt-et-un
in the saloon yesterday; and that passenger drinks his bottle of
champagne every day, and how he does it (being only a clerk),
nobody knows. The head engineer has distinctly said that there
never was such times - meaning weather - and four good hands are
ill, and have given in, dead beat. Several berths are full of
water, and all the cabins are leaky. The ship's cook, secretly
swigging damaged whiskey, has been found drunk; and has been played
upon by the fire-engine until quite sober. All the stewards have
fallen down-stairs at various dinner-times, and go about with
plasters in various places. The baker is ill, and so is the
pastry-cook. A new man, horribly indisposed, has been required to
fill the place of the latter officer; and has been propped and
jammed up with empty casks in a little house upon deck, and
commanded to roll out pie-crust, which he protests (being highly
bilious) it is death to him to look at. News! A dozen murders on
shore would lack the interest of these slight incidents at sea.
Divided between our rubber and such topics as these, we were
running (as we thought) into Halifax Harbour, on the fifteenth
night, with little wind and a bright moon - indeed, we had made the
Light at its outer entrance, and put the pilot in charge - when
suddenly the ship struck upon a bank of mud. An immediate rush on
deck took place of course; the sides were crowded in an instant;
and for a few minutes we were in as lively a state of confusion as
the greatest lover of disorder would desire to see. The
passengers, and guns, and water-casks, and other heavy matters,
being all huddled together aft, however, to lighten her in the
head, she was soon got off; and after some driving on towards an
uncomfortable line of objects (whose vicinity had been announced
very early in the disaster by a loud cry of 'Breakers a-head!') and
much backing of paddles, and heaving of the lead into a constantly
decreasing depth of water, we dropped anchor in a strange
outlandish-looking nook which nobody on board could recognise,
although there was land all about us, and so close that we could
plainly see the waving branches of the trees.
It was strange enough, in the silence of midnight, and the dead
stillness that seemed to be created by the sudden and unexpected
stoppage of the engine which had been clanking and blasting in our
ears incessantly for so many days, to watch the look of blank
astonishment expressed in every face: beginning with the officers,
tracing it through all the passengers, and descending to the very
stokers and furnacemen, who emerged from below, one by one, and
clustered together in a smoky group about the hatchway of the
engine-room, comparing notes in whispers. After throwing up a few
rockets and firing signal guns in the hope of being hailed from the
land, or at least of seeing a light - but without any other sight
or sound presenting itself - it was determined to send a boat on
shore. It was amusing to observe how very kind some of the
passengers were, in volunteering to go ashore in this same boat:
for the general good, of course: not by any means because they
thought the ship in an unsafe position, or contemplated the
possibility of her heeling over in case the tide were running out.
Nor was it less amusing to remark how desperately unpopular the
poor pilot became in one short minute. He had had his passage out
from Liverpool, and during the whole voyage had been quite a
notorious character, as a teller of anecdotes and cracker of jokes.
Yet here were the very men who had laughed the loudest at his
jests, now flourishing their fists in his face, loading him with
imprecations, and defying him to his teeth as a villain!
The boat soon shoved off, with a lantern and sundry blue lights on
board; and in less than an hour returned; the officer in command
bringing with him a tolerably tall young tree, which he had plucked
up by the roots, to satisfy certain distrustful passengers whose
minds misgave them that they were to be imposed upon and
shipwrecked, and who would on no other terms believe that he had
been ashore, or had done anything but fraudulently row a little way
into the mist, specially to deceive them and compass their deaths.
Our captain had foreseen from the first that we must be in a place
called the Eastern passage; and so we were. It was about the last
place in the world in which we had any business or reason to be,
but a sudden fog, and some error on the pilot's part, were the
cause. We were surrounded by banks, and rocks, and shoals of all
kinds, but had happily drifted, it seemed, upon the only safe speck
that was to be found thereabouts. Eased by this report, and by the
assurance that the tide was past the ebb, we turned in at three
o'clock in the morning.
I was dressing about half-past nine next day, when the noise above
hurried me on deck. When I had left it overnight, it was dark,
foggy, and damp, and there were bleak hills all round us. Now, we
were gliding down a smooth, broad stream, at the rate of eleven
miles an hour: our colours flying gaily; our crew rigged out in
their smartest clothes; our officers in uniform again; the sun
shining as on a brilliant April day in England; the land stretched
out on either side, streaked with light patches of snow; white
wooden houses; people at their doors; telegraphs working; flags
hoisted; wharfs appearing; ships; quays crowded with people;
distant noises; shouts; men and boys running down steep places
towards the pier: all more bright and gay and fresh to our unused
eyes than words can paint them. We came to a wharf, paved with
uplifted faces; got alongside, and were made fast, after some
shouting and straining of cables; darted, a score of us along the
gangway, almost as soon as it was thrust out to meet us, and before
it had reached the ship - and leaped upon the firm glad earth
again!
I suppose this Halifax would have appeared an Elysium, though it
had been a curiosity of ugly dulness. But I carried away with me a
most pleasant impression of the town and its inhabitants, and have
preserved it to this hour. Nor was it without regret that I came
home, without having found an opportunity of returning thither, and
once more shaking hands with the friends I made that day.
It happened to be the opening of the Legislative Council and
General Assembly, at which ceremonial the forms observed on the
commencement of a new Session of Parliament in England were so
closely copied, and so gravely presented on a small scale, that it
was like looking at Westminster through the wrong end of a
telescope. The governor, as her Majesty's representative,
delivered what may be called the Speech from the Throne. He said
what he had to say manfully and well. The military band outside
the building struck up "God save the Queen" with great vigour
before his Excellency had quite finished; the people shouted; the
in's rubbed their hands; the out's shook their heads; the
Government party said there never was such a good speech; the
Opposition declared there never was such a bad one; the Speaker and
members of the House of Assembly withdrew from the bar to say a
great deal among themselves and do a little: and, in short,
everything went on, and promised to go on, just as it does at home
upon the like occasions.
The town is built on the side of a hill, the highest point being
commanded by a strong fortress, not yet quite finished. Several
streets of good breadth and appearance extend from its summit to
the water-side, and are intersected by cross streets running
parallel with the river. The houses are chiefly of wood. The
market is abundantly supplied; and provisions are exceedingly
cheap. The weather being unusually mild at that time for the
season of the year, there was no sleighing: but there were plenty
of those vehicles in yards and by-places, and some of them, from
the gorgeous quality of their decorations, might have 'gone on'
without alteration as triumphal cars in a melodrama at Astley's.
The day was uncommonly fine; the air bracing and healthful; the
whole aspect of the town cheerful, thriving, and industrious.
We lay there seven hours, to deliver and exchange the mails. At
length, having collected all our bags and all our passengers
(including two or three choice spirits, who, having indulged too
freely in oysters and champagne, were found lying insensible on
their backs in unfrequented streets), the engines were again put in
motion, and we stood off for Boston.
Encountering squally weather again in the Bay of Fundy, we tumbled
and rolled about as usual all that night and all next day. On the
next afternoon, that is to say, on Saturday, the twenty-second of
January, an American pilot-boat came alongside, and soon afterwards
the Britannia steam-packet, from Liverpool, eighteen days out, was
telegraphed at Boston.
The indescribable interest with which I strained my eyes, as the
first patches of American soil peeped like molehills from the green
sea, and followed them, as they swelled, by slow and almost
imperceptible degrees, into a continuous line of coast, can hardly
be exaggerated. A sharp keen wind blew dead against us; a hard
frost prevailed on shore; and the cold was most severe. Yet the
air was so intensely clear, and dry, and bright, that the
temperature was not only endurable, but delicious.
How I remained on deck, staring about me, until we came alongside
the dock, and how, though I had had as many eyes as Argus, I should
have had them all wide open, and all employed on new objects - are
topics which I will not prolong this chapter to discuss. Neither
will I more than hint at my foreigner-like mistake in supposing
that a party of most active persons, who scrambled on board at the
peril of their lives as we approached the wharf, were newsmen,
answering to that industrious class at home; whereas, despite the
leathern wallets of news slung about the necks of some, and the
broad sheets in the hands of all, they were Editors, who boarded
ships in person (as one gentleman in a worsted comforter informed
me), 'because they liked the excitement of it.' Suffice it in this
place to say, that one of these invaders, with a ready courtesy for
which I thank him here most gratefully, went on before to order
rooms at the hotel; and that when I followed, as I soon did, I
found myself rolling through the long passages with an involuntary
imitation of the gait of Mr. T. P. Cooke, in a new nautical
melodrama.
'Dinner, if you please,' said I to the waiter.
'When?' said the waiter.
'As quick as possible,' said I.
'Right away?' said the waiter.
After a moment's hesitation, I answered 'No,' at hazard.
'NOT right away?' cried the waiter, with an amount of surprise that
made me start.
I looked at him doubtfully, and returned, 'No; I would rather have
it in this private room. I like it very much.'
At this, I really thought the waiter must have gone out of his
mind: as I believe he would have done, but for the interposition
of another man, who whispered in his ear, 'Directly.'
'Well! and that's a fact!' said the waiter, looking helplessly at
me: 'Right away.'
I saw now that 'Right away' and 'Directly' were one and the same
thing. So I reversed my previous answer, and sat down to dinner in
ten minutes afterwards; and a capital dinner it was.
The hotel (a very excellent one) is called the Tremont House. It
has more galleries, colonnades, piazzas, and passages than I can
remember, or the reader would believe.
CHAPTER III - BOSTON
IN all the public establishments of America, the utmost courtesy
prevails. Most of our Departments are susceptible of considerable
improvement in this respect, but the Custom-house above all others
would do well to take example from the United States and render
itself somewhat less odious and offensive to foreigners. The
servile rapacity of the French officials is sufficiently
contemptible; but there is a surly boorish incivility about our
men, alike disgusting to all persons who fall into their hands, and
discreditable to the nation that keeps such ill-conditioned curs
snarling about its gates.
When I landed in America, I could not help being strongly impressed
with the contrast their Custom-house presented, and the attention,
politeness and good humour with which its officers discharged their
duty.
As we did not land at Boston, in consequence of some detention at
the wharf, until after dark, I received my first impressions of the
city in walking down to the Custom-house on the morning after our
arrival, which was Sunday. I am afraid to say, by the way, how
many offers of pews and seats in church for that morning were made
to us, by formal note of invitation, before we had half finished
our first dinner in America, but if I may be allowed to make a
moderate guess, without going into nicer calculation, I should say
that at least as many sittings were proffered us, as would have
accommodated a score or two of grown-up families. The number of
creeds and forms of religion to which the pleasure of our company
was requested, was in very fair proportion.
Not being able, in the absence of any change of clothes, to go to
church that day, we were compelled to decline these kindnesses, one
and all; and I was reluctantly obliged to forego the delight of
hearing Dr. Channing, who happened to preach that morning for the
first time in a very long interval. I mention the name of this
distinguished and accomplished man (with whom I soon afterwards had
the pleasure of becoming personally acquainted), that I may have
the gratification of recording my humble tribute of admiration and
respect for his high abilities and character; and for the bold
philanthropy with which he has ever opposed himself to that most
hideous blot and foul disgrace - Slavery.
To return to Boston. When I got into the streets upon this Sunday
morning, the air was so clear, the houses were so bright and gay:
the signboards were painted in such gaudy colours; the gilded
letters were so very golden; the bricks were so very red, the stone
was so very white, the blinds and area railings were so very green,
the knobs and plates upon the street doors so marvellously bright
and twinkling; and all so slight and unsubstantial in appearance -
that every thoroughfare in the city looked exactly like a scene in
a pantomime. It rarely happens in the business streets that a
tradesman, if I may venture to call anybody a tradesman, where
everybody is a merchant, resides above his store; so that many
occupations are often carried on in one house, and the whole front
is covered with boards and inscriptions. As I walked along, I kept
glancing up at these boards, confidently expecting to see a few of
them change into something; and I never turned a corner suddenly
without looking out for the clown and pantaloon, who, I had no
doubt, were hiding in a doorway or behind some pillar close at
hand. As to Harlequin and Columbine, I discovered immediately that
they lodged (they are always looking after lodgings in a pantomime)
at a very small clockmaker's one story high, near the hotel; which,
in addition to various symbols and devices, almost covering the
whole front, had a great dial hanging out - to be jumped through,
of course.
The suburbs are, if possible, even more unsubstantial-looking than
the city. The white wooden houses (so white that it makes one wink
to look at them), with their green jalousie blinds, are so
sprinkled and dropped about in all directions, without seeming to
have any root at all in the ground; and the small churches and
chapels are so prim, and bright, and highly varnished; that I
almost believed the whole affair could be taken up piecemeal like a
child's toy, and crammed into a little box.
The city is a beautiful one, and cannot fail, I should imagine, to
impress all strangers very favourably. The private dwelling-houses
are, for the most part, large and elegant; the shops extremely
good; and the public buildings handsome. The State House is built
upon the summit of a hill, which rises gradually at first, and
afterwards by a steep ascent, almost from the water's edge. In
front is a green enclosure, called the Common. The site is
beautiful: and from the top there is a charming panoramic view of
the whole town and neighbourhood. In addition to a variety of
commodious offices, it contains two handsome chambers; in one the
House of Representatives of the State hold their meetings: in the
other, the Senate. Such proceedings as I saw here, were conducted
with perfect gravity and decorum; and were certainly calculated to
inspire attention and respect.
There is no doubt that much of the intellectual refinement and
superiority of Boston, is referable to the quiet influence of the
University of Cambridge, which is within three or four miles of the
city. The resident professors at that university are gentlemen of
learning and varied attainments; and are, without one exception
that I can call to mind, men who would shed a grace upon, and do
honour to, any society in the civilised world. Many of the
resident gentry in Boston and its neighbourhood, and I think I am
not mistaken in adding, a large majority of those who are attached
to the liberal professions there, have been educated at this same
school. Whatever the defects of American universities may be, they
disseminate no prejudices; rear no bigots; dig up the buried ashes
of no old superstitions; never interpose between the people and
their improvement; exclude no man because of his religious
opinions; above all, in their whole course of study and
instruction, recognise a world, and a broad one too, lying beyond
the college walls.
It was a source of inexpressible pleasure to me to observe the
almost imperceptible, but not less certain effect, wrought by this
institution among the small community of Boston; and to note at
every turn the humanising tastes and desires it has engendered; the
affectionate friendships to which it has given rise; the amount of
vanity and prejudice it has dispelled. The golden calf they
worship at Boston is a pigmy compared with the giant effigies set
up in other parts of that vast counting-house which lies beyond the
Atlantic; and the almighty dollar sinks into something
comparatively insignificant, amidst a whole Pantheon of better
gods.
Above all, I sincerely believe that the public institutions and
charities of this capital of Massachusetts are as nearly perfect,
as the most considerate wisdom, benevolence, and humanity, can make
them. I never in my life was more affected by the contemplation of
happiness, under circumstances of privation and bereavement, than
in my visits to these establishments.
It is a great and pleasant feature of all such institutions in
America, that they are either supported by the State or assisted by
the State; or (in the event of their not needing its helping hand)
that they act in concert with it, and are emphatically the
people's. I cannot but think, with a view to the principle and its
tendency to elevate or depress the character of the industrious
classes, that a Public Charity is immeasurably better than a
Private Foundation, no matter how munificently the latter may be
endowed. In our own country, where it has not, until within these
later days, been a very popular fashion with governments to display
any extraordinary regard for the great mass of the people or to
recognise their existence as improvable creatures, private
charities, unexampled in the history of the earth, have arisen, to
do an incalculable amount of good among the destitute and
afflicted. But the government of the country, having neither act
nor part in them, is not in the receipt of any portion of the
gratitude they inspire; and, offering very little shelter or relief
beyond that which is to be found in the workhouse and the jail, has
come, not unnaturally, to be looked upon by the poor rather as a
stern master, quick to correct and punish, than a kind protector,
merciful and vigilant in their hour of need.
The maxim that out of evil cometh good, is strongly illustrated by
these establishments at home; as the records of the Prerogative
Office in Doctors' Commons can abundantly prove. Some immensely
rich old gentleman or lady, surrounded by needy relatives, makes,
upon a low average, a will a-week. The old gentleman or lady,
never very remarkable in the best of times for good temper, is full
of aches and pains from head to foot; full of fancies and caprices;
full of spleen, distrust, suspicion, and dislike. To cancel old
wills, and invent new ones, is at last the sole business of such a
testator's existence; and relations and friends (some of whom have
been bred up distinctly to inherit a large share of the property,
and have been, from their cradles, specially disqualified from
devoting themselves to any useful pursuit, on that account) are so
often and so unexpectedly and summarily cut off, and reinstated,
and cut off again, that the whole family, down to the remotest
cousin, is kept in a perpetual fever. At length it becomes plain
that the old lady or gentleman has not long to live; and the
plainer this becomes, the more clearly the old lady or gentleman
perceives that everybody is in a conspiracy against their poor old
dying relative; wherefore the old lady or gentleman makes another
last will - positively the last this time - conceals the same in a
china teapot, and expires next day. Then it turns out, that the
whole of the real and personal estate is divided between half-a-
dozen charities; and that the dead and gone testator has in pure
spite helped to do a great deal of good, at the cost of an immense
amount of evil passion and misery.
The Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, at
Boston, is superintended by a body of trustees who make an annual
report to the corporation. The indigent blind of that state are
admitted gratuitously. Those from the adjoining state of
Connecticut, or from the states of Maine, Vermont, or New
Hampshire, are admitted by a warrant from the state to which they
respectively belong; or, failing that, must find security among
their friends, for the payment of about twenty pounds English for
their first year's board and instruction, and ten for the second.
'After the first year,' say the trustees, 'an account current will
be opened with each pupil; he will be charged with the actual cost
of his board, which will not exceed two dollars per week;' a trifle
more than eight shillings English; 'and he will be credited with
the amount paid for him by the state, or by his friends; also with
his earnings over and above the cost of the stock which he uses; so
that all his earnings over one dollar per week will be his own. By
the third year it will be known whether his earnings will more than
pay the actual cost of his board; if they should, he will have it
at his option to remain and receive his earnings, or not. Those
who prove unable to earn their own livelihood will not be retained;
as it is not desirable to convert the establishment into an alms-
house, or to retain any but working bees in the hive. Those who by
physical or mental imbecility are disqualified from work, are
thereby disqualified from being members of an industrious
community; and they can be better provided for in establishments
fitted for the infirm.'
I went to see this place one very fine winter morning: an Italian
sky above, and the air so clear and bright on every side, that even
my eyes, which are none of the best, could follow the minute lines
and scraps of tracery in distant buildings. Like most other public
institutions in America, of the same class, it stands a mile or two
without the town, in a cheerful healthy spot; and is an airy,
spacious, handsome edifice. It is built upon a height, commanding
the harbour. When I paused for a moment at the door, and marked
how fresh and free the whole scene was - what sparkling bubbles
glanced upon the waves, and welled up every moment to the surface,
as though the world below, like that above, were radiant with the
bright day, and gushing over in its fulness of light: when I gazed
from sail to sail away upon a ship at sea, a tiny speck of shining
white, the only cloud upon the still, deep, distant blue - and,
turning, saw a blind boy with his sightless face addressed that
way, as though he too had some sense within him of the glorious
distance: I felt a kind of sorrow that the place should be so very
light, and a strange wish that for his sake it were darker. It was
but momentary, of course, and a mere fancy, but I felt it keenly
for all that.
The children were at their daily tasks in different rooms, except a
few who were already dismissed, and were at play. Here, as in many
institutions, no uniform is worn; and I was very glad of it, for
two reasons. Firstly, because I am sure that nothing but senseless
custom and want of thought would reconcile us to the liveries and
badges we are so fond of at home. Secondly, because the absence of
these things presents each child to the visitor in his or her own
proper character, with its individuality unimpaired; not lost in a
dull, ugly, monotonous repetition of the same unmeaning garb:
which is really an important consideration. The wisdom of
encouraging a little harmless pride in personal appearance even
among the blind, or the whimsical absurdity of considering charity
and leather breeches inseparable companions, as we do, requires no
comment.
Good order, cleanliness, and comfort, pervaded every corner of the
building. The various classes, who were gathered round their
teachers, answered the questions put to them with readiness and
intelligence, and in a spirit of cheerful contest for precedence
which pleased me very much. Those who were at play, were gleesome
and noisy as other children. More spiritual and affectionate
friendships appeared to exist among them, than would be found among
other young persons suffering under no deprivation; but this I
expected and was prepared to find. It is a part of the great
scheme of Heaven's merciful consideration for the afflicted.
In a portion of the building, set apart for that purpose, are work-
shops for blind persons whose education is finished, and who have
acquired a trade, but who cannot pursue it in an ordinary
manufactory because of their deprivation. Several people were at
work here; making brushes, mattresses, and so forth; and the
cheerfulness, industry, and good order discernible in every other
part of the building, extended to this department also.
On the ringing of a bell, the pupils all repaired, without any
guide or leader, to a spacious music-hall, where they took their
seats in an orchestra erected for that purpose, and listened with
manifest delight to a voluntary on the organ, played by one of
themselves. At its conclusion, the performer, a boy of nineteen or
twenty, gave place to a girl; and to her accompaniment they all
sang a hymn, and afterwards a sort of chorus. It was very sad to
look upon and hear them, happy though their condition
unquestionably was; and I saw that one blind girl, who (being for
the time deprived of the use of her limbs, by illness) sat close
beside me with her face towards them, wept silently the while she
listened.
It is strange to watch the faces of the blind, and see how free
they are from all concealment of what is passing in their thoughts;
observing which, a man with eyes may blush to contemplate the mask
he wears. Allowing for one shade of anxious expression which is
never absent from their countenances, and the like of which we may
readily detect in our own faces if we try to feel our way in the
dark, every idea, as it rises within them, is expressed with the
lightning's speed and nature's truth. If the company at a rout, or
drawing-room at court, could only for one time be as unconscious of
the eyes upon them as blind men and women are, what secrets would
come out, and what a worker of hypocrisy this sight, the loss of
which we so much pity, would appear to be!
The thought occurred to me as I sat down in another room, before a
girl, blind, deaf, and dumb; destitute of smell; and nearly so of
taste: before a fair young creature with every human faculty, and
hope, and power of goodness and affection, inclosed within her
delicate frame, and but one outward sense - the sense of touch.
There she was, before me; built up, as it were, in a marble cell,
impervious to any ray of light, or particle of sound; with her poor
white hand peeping through a chink in the wall, beckoning to some
good man for help, that an Immortal soul might be awakened.
Long before I looked upon her, the help had come. Her face was
radiant with intelligence and pleasure. Her hair, braided by her
own hands, was bound about a head, whose intellectual capacity and
development were beautifully expressed in its graceful outline, and
its broad open brow; her dress, arranged by herself, was a pattern
of neatness and simplicity; the work she had knitted, lay beside
her; her writing-book was on the desk she leaned upon. - From the
mournful ruin of such bereavement, there had slowly risen up this
gentle, tender, guileless, grateful-hearted being.
Like other inmates of that house, she had a green ribbon bound
round her eyelids. A doll she had dressed lay near upon the
ground. I took it up, and saw that she had made a green fillet
such as she wore herself, and fastened it about its mimic eyes.
She was seated in a little enclosure, made by school-desks and
forms, writing her daily journal. But soon finishing this pursuit,
she engaged in an animated conversation with a teacher who sat
beside her. This was a favourite mistress with the poor pupil. If
she could see the face of her fair instructress, she would not love
her less, I am sure.
I have extracted a few disjointed fragments of her history, from an
account, written by that one man who has made her what she is. It
is a very beautiful and touching narrative; and I wish I could
present it entire.
Her name is Laura Bridgman. 'She was born in Hanover, New
Hampshire, on the twenty-first of December, 1829. She is described
as having been a very sprightly and pretty infant, with bright blue
eyes. She was, however, so puny and feeble until she was a year
and a half old, that her parents hardly hoped to rear her. She was
subject to severe fits, which seemed to rack her frame almost
beyond her power of endurance: and life was held by the feeblest
tenure: but when a year and a half old, she seemed to rally; the
dangerous symptoms subsided; and at twenty months old, she was
perfectly well.
'Then her mental powers, hitherto stinted in their growth, rapidly
developed themselves; and during the four months of health which
she enjoyed, she appears (making due allowance for a fond mother's
account) to have displayed a considerable degree of intelligence.
'But suddenly she sickened again; her disease raged with great
violence during five weeks, when her eyes and ears were inflamed,
suppurated, and their contents were discharged. But though sight
and hearing were gone for ever, the poor child's sufferings were
not ended. The fever raged during seven weeks; for five months she
was kept in bed in a darkened room; it was a year before she could
walk unsupported, and two years before she could sit up all day.
It was now observed that her sense of smell was almost entirely
destroyed; and, consequently, that her taste was much blunted.
'It was not until four years of age that the poor child's bodily
health seemed restored, and she was able to enter upon her
apprenticeship of life and the world.
'But what a situation was hers! The darkness and the silence of
the tomb were around her: no mother's smile called forth her
answering smile, no father's voice taught her to imitate his
sounds:- they, brothers and sisters, were but forms of matter which
resisted her touch, but which differed not from the furniture of
the house, save in warmth, and in the power of locomotion; and not
even in these respects from the dog and the cat.
'But the immortal spirit which had been implanted within her could
not die, nor be maimed nor mutilated; and though most of its
avenues of communication with the world were cut off, it began to
manifest itself through the others. As soon as she could walk, she
began to explore the room, and then the house; she became familiar
with the form, density, weight, and heat, of every article she
could lay her hands upon. She followed her mother, and felt her
hands and arms, as she was occupied about the house; and her
disposition to imitate, led her to repeat everything herself. She
even learned to sew a little, and to knit.'
The reader will scarcely need to be told, however, that the
opportunities of communicating with her, were very, very limited;
and that the moral effects of her wretched state soon began to
appear. Those who cannot be enlightened by reason, can only be
controlled by force; and this, coupled with her great privations,
must soon have reduced her to a worse condition than that of the
beasts that perish, but for timely and unhoped-for aid.
'At this time, I was so fortunate as to hear of the child, and
immediately hastened to Hanover to see her. I found her with a
well-formed figure; a strongly-marked, nervous-sanguine
temperament; a large and beautifully-shaped head; and the whole
system in healthy action. The parents were easily induced to
consent to her coming to Boston, and on the 4th of October, 1837,
they brought her to the Institution.
'For a while, she was much bewildered; and after waiting about two
weeks, until she became acquainted with her new locality, and
somewhat familiar with the inmates, the attempt was made to give
her knowledge of arbitrary signs, by which she could interchange
thoughts with others.
'There was one of two ways to be adopted: either to go on to build
up a language of signs on the basis of the natural language which
she had already commenced herself, or to teach her the purely
arbitrary language in common use: that is, to give her a sign for
every individual thing, or to give her a knowledge of letters by
combination of which she might express her idea of the existence,
and the mode and condition of existence, of any thing. The former
would have been easy, but very ineffectual; the latter seemed very
difficult, but, if accomplished, very effectual. I determined
therefore to try the latter.
'The first experiments were made by taking articles in common use,
such as knives, forks, spoons, keys, &c., and pasting upon them
labels with their names printed in raised letters. These she felt
very carefully, and soon, of course, distinguished that the crooked
lines SPOON, differed as much from the crooked lines KEY, as the
spoon differed from the key in form.
'Then small detached labels, with the same words printed upon them,
were put into her hands; and she soon observed that they were
similar to the ones pasted on the articles.' She showed her
perception of this similarity by laying the label KEY upon the key,
and the label SPOON upon the spoon. She was encouraged here by the
natural sign of approbation, patting on the head.
'The same process was then repeated with all the articles which she
could handle; and she very easily learned to place the proper
labels upon them. It was evident, however, that the only
intellectual exercise was that of imitation and memory. She
recollected that the label BOOK was placed upon a book, and she
repeated the process first from imitation, next from memory, with
only the motive of love of approbation, but apparently without the
intellectual perception of any relation between the things.
'After a while, instead of labels, the individual letters were
given to her on detached bits of paper: they were arranged side by
side so as to spell BOOK, KEY, &c.; then they were mixed up in a
heap and a sign was made for her to arrange them herself so as to
express the words BOOK, KEY, &c.; and she did so.
'Hitherto, the process had been mechanical, and the success about
as great as teaching a very knowing dog a variety of tricks. The
poor child had sat in mute amazement, and patiently imitated
everything her teacher did; but now the truth began to flash upon
her: her intellect began to work: she perceived that here was a
way by which she could herself make up a sign of anything that was
in her own mind, and show it to another mind; and at once her
countenance lighted up with a human expression: it was no longer a
dog, or parrot: it was an immortal spirit, eagerly seizing upon a
new link of union with other spirits! I could almost fix upon the
moment when this truth dawned upon her mind, and spread its light
to her countenance; I saw that the great obstacle was overcome; and
that henceforward nothing but patient and persevering, but plain
and straightforward, efforts were to be used.
'The result thus far, is quickly related, and easily conceived; but
not so was the process; for many weeks of apparently unprofitable
labour were passed before it was effected.
'When it was said above that a sign was made, it was intended to
say, that the action was performed by her teacher, she feeling his
hands, and then imitating the motion.
'The next step was to procure a set of metal types, with the
different letters of the alphabet cast upon their ends; also a
board, in which were square holes, into which holes she could set
the types; so that the letters on their ends could alone be felt
above the surface.
'Then, on any article being handed to her, for instance, a pencil,
or a watch, she would select the component letters, and arrange
them on her board, and read them with apparent pleasure.
'She was exercised for several weeks in this way, until her
vocabulary became extensive; and then the important step was taken
of teaching her how to represent the different letters by the
position of her fingers, instead of the cumbrous apparatus of the
board and types. She accomplished this speedily and easily, for
her intellect had begun to work in aid of her teacher, and her
progress was rapid.
'This was the period, about three months after she had commenced,
that the first report of her case was made, in which it was stated
that "she has just learned the manual alphabet, as used by the deaf
mutes, and it is a subject of delight and wonder to see how
rapidly, correctly, and eagerly, she goes on with her labours. Her
teacher gives her a new object, for instance, a pencil, first lets
her examine it, and get an idea of its use, then teaches her how to
spell it by making the signs for the letters with her own fingers:
the child grasps her hand, and feels her fingers, as the different
letters are formed; she turns her head a little on one side like a
person listening closely; her lips are apart; she seems scarcely to
breathe; and her countenance, at first anxious, gradually changes
to a smile, as she comprehends the lesson. She then holds up her
tiny fingers, and spells the word in the manual alphabet; next, she
takes her types and arranges her letters; and last, to make sure
that she is right, she takes the whole of the types composing the
word, and places them upon or in contact with the pencil, or
whatever the object may be."
'The whole of the succeeding year was passed in gratifying her
eager inquiries for the names of every object which she could
possibly handle; in exercising her in the use of the manual
alphabet; in extending in every possible way her knowledge of the
physical relations of things; and in proper care of her health.
'At the end of the year a report of her case was made, from which
the following is an extract.
'"It has been ascertained beyond the possibility of doubt, that she
cannot see a ray of light, cannot hear the least sound, and never
exercises her sense of smell, if she have any. Thus her mind
dwells in darkness and stillness, as profound as that of a closed
tomb at midnight. Of beautiful sights, and sweet sounds, and
pleasant odours, she has no conception; nevertheless, she seems as
happy and playful as a bird or a lamb; and the employment of her
intellectual faculties, or the acquirement of a new idea, gives her
a vivid pleasure, which is plainly marked in her expressive
features. She never seems to repine, but has all the buoyancy and
gaiety of childhood. She is fond of fun and frolic, and when
playing with the rest of the children, her shrill laugh sounds
loudest of the group.
'"When left alone, she seems very happy if she have her knitting or
sewing, and will busy herself for hours; if she have no occupation,
she evidently amuses herself by imaginary dialogues, or by
recalling past impressions; she counts with her fingers, or spells
out names of things which she has recently learned, in the manual
alphabet of the deaf mutes. In this lonely self-communion she
seems to reason, reflect, and argue; if she spell a word wrong with
the fingers of her right hand, she instantly strikes it with her
left, as her teacher does, in sign of disapprobation; if right,
then she pats herself upon the head, and looks pleased. She
sometimes purposely spells a word wrong with the left hand, looks
roguish for a moment and laughs, and then with the right hand
strikes the left, as if to correct it.
'"During the year she has attained great dexterity in the use of
the manual alphabet of the deaf mutes; and she spells out the words
and sentences which she knows, so fast and so deftly, that only
those accustomed to this language can follow with the eye the rapid
motions of her fingers.
'"But wonderful as is the rapidity with which she writes her
thoughts upon the air, still more so is the ease and accuracy with
which she reads the words thus written by another; grasping their
hands in hers, and following every movement of their fingers, as
letter after letter conveys their meaning to her mind. It is in
this way that she converses with her blind playmates, and nothing
can more forcibly show the power of mind in forcing matter to its
purpose than a meeting between them. For if great talent and skill
are necessary for two pantomimes to paint their thoughts and
feelings by the movements of the body, and the expression of the
countenance, how much greater the difficulty when darkness shrouds
them both, and the one can hear no sound.
'"When Laura is walking through a passage-way, with her hands
spread before her, she knows instantly every one she meets, and
passes them with a sign of recognition: but if it be a girl of her
own age, and especially if it be one of her favourites, there is
instantly a bright smile of recognition, a twining of arms, a
grasping of hands, and a swift telegraphing upon the tiny fingers;
whose rapid evolutions convey the thoughts and feelings from the
outposts of one mind to those of the other. There are questions
and answers, exchanges of joy or sorrow, there are kissings and
partings, just as between little children with all their senses."
'During this year, and six months after she had left home, her
mother came to visit her, and the scene of their meeting was an
interesting one.
'The mother stood some time, gazing with overflowing eyes upon her
unfortunate child, who, all unconscious of her presence, was
playing about the room. Presently Laura ran against her, and at
once began feeling her hands, examining her dress, and trying to
find out if she knew her; but not succeeding in this, she turned
away as from a stranger, and the poor woman could not conceal the
pang she felt, at finding that her beloved child did not know her.
'She then gave Laura a string of beads which she used to wear at
home, which were recognised by the child at once, who, with much
joy, put them around her neck, and sought me eagerly to say she
understood the string was from her home.
'The mother now sought to caress her, but poor Laura repelled her,
preferring to be with her acquaintances.
'Another article from home was now given her, and she began to look
much interested; she examined the stranger much closer, and gave me
to understand that she knew she came from Hanover; she even endured
her caresses, but would leave her with indifference at the
slightest signal. The distress of the mother was now painful to
behold; for, although she had feared that she should not be
recognised, the painful reality of being treated with cold
indifference by a darling child, was too much for woman's nature to
bear.
'After a while, on the mother taking hold of her again, a vague
idea seemed to flit across Laura's mind, that this could not be a
stranger; she therefore felt her hands very eagerly, while her
countenance assumed an expression of intense interest; she became
very pale; and then suddenly red; hope seemed struggling with doubt
and anxiety, and never were contending emotions more strongly
painted upon the human face: at this moment of painful
uncertainty, the mother drew her close to her side, and kissed her
fondly, when at once the truth flashed upon the child, and all
mistrust and anxiety disappeared from her face, as with an
expression of exceeding joy she eagerly nestled to the bosom of her
parent, and yielded herself to her fond embraces.
'After this, the beads were all unheeded; the playthings which were
offered to her were utterly disregarded; her playmates, for whom
but a moment before she gladly left the stranger, now vainly strove
to pull her from her mother; and though she yielded her usual
instantaneous obedience to my signal to follow me, it was evidently
with painful reluctance. She clung close to me, as if bewildered
and fearful; and when, after a moment, I took her to her mother,
she sprang to her arms, and clung to her with eager joy.
'The subsequent parting between them, showed alike the affection,
the intelligence, and the resolution of the child.
'Laura accompanied her mother to the door, clinging close to her
all the way, until they arrived at the threshold, where she paused,
and felt around, to ascertain who was near her. Perceiving the
matron, of whom she is very fond, she grasped her with one hand,
holding on convulsively to her mother with the other; and thus she
stood for a moment: then she dropped her mother's hand; put her
handkerchief to her eyes; and turning round, clung sobbing to the
matron; while her mother departed, with emotions as deep as those
of her child.
* * * * * *
'It has been remarked in former reports, that she can distinguish
different degrees of intellect in others, and that she soon
regarded, almost with contempt, a new-comer, when, after a few
days, she discovered her weakness of mind. This unamiable part of
her character has been more strongly developed during the past
year.
'She chooses for her friends and companions, those children who are
intelligent, and can talk best with her; and she evidently dislikes
to be with those who are deficient in intellect, unless, indeed,
she can make them serve her purposes, which she is evidently
inclined to do. She takes advantage of them, and makes them wait
upon her, in a manner that she knows she could not exact of others;
and in various ways shows her Saxon blood.
'She is fond of having other children noticed and caressed by the
teachers, and those whom she respects; but this must not be carried
too far, or she becomes jealous. She wants to have her share,
which, if not the lion's, is the greater part; and if she does not
get it, she says, "MY MOTHER WILL LOVE ME."
'Her tendency to imitation is so strong, that it leads her to
actions which must be entirely incomprehensible to her, and which
can give her no other pleasure than the gratification of an
internal faculty. She has been known to sit for half an hour,
holding a book before her sightless eyes, and moving her lips, as
she has observed seeing people do when reading.
'She one day pretended that her doll was sick; and went through all
the motions of tending it, and giving it medicine; she then put it
carefully to bed, and placed a bottle of hot water to its feet,
laughing all the time most heartily. When I came home, she
insisted upon my going to see it, and feel its pulse; and when I
told her to put a blister on its back, she seemed to enjoy it
amazingly, and almost screamed with delight.
'Her social feelings, and her affections, are very strong; and when
she is sitting at work, or at her studies, by the side of one of
her little friends, she will break off from her task every few
moments, to hug and kiss them with an earnestness and warmth that
is touching to behold.
'When left alone, she occupies and apparently amuses herself, and
seems quite contented; and so strong seems to be the natural
tendency of thought to put on the garb of language, that she often
soliloquizes in the FINGER LANGUAGE, slow and tedious as it is.
But it is only when alone, that she is quiet: for if she becomes
sensible of the presence of any one near her, she is restless until
she can sit close beside them, hold their hand, and converse with
them by signs.
'In her intellectual character it is pleasing to observe an
insatiable thirst for knowledge, and a quick perception of the
relations of things. In her moral character, it is beautiful to
behold her continual gladness, her keen enjoyment of existence, her
expansive love, her unhesitating confidence, her sympathy with
suffering, her conscientiousness, truthfulness, and hopefulness.'
Such are a few fragments from the simple but most interesting and
instructive history of Laura Bridgman. The name of her great
benefactor and friend, who writes it, is Dr. Howe. There are not
many persons, I hope and believe, who, after reading these
passages, can ever hear that name with indifference.
A further account has been published by Dr. Howe, since the report
from which I have just quoted. It describes her rapid mental
growth and improvement during twelve months more, and brings her
little history down to the end of last year. It is very
remarkable, that as we dream in words, and carry on imaginary
conversations, in which we speak both for ourselves and for the
shadows who appear to us in those visions of the night, so she,
having no words, uses her finger alphabet in her sleep. And it has
been ascertained that when her slumber is broken, and is much
disturbed by dreams, she expresses her thoughts in an irregular and
confused manner on her fingers: just as we should murmur and
mutter them indistinctly, in the like circumstances.
I turned over the leaves of her Diary, and found it written in a
fair legible square hand, and expressed in terms which were quite
intelligible without any explanation. On my saying that I should
like to see her write again, the teacher who sat beside her, bade
her, in their language, sign her name upon a slip of paper, twice
or thrice. In doing so, I observed that she kept her left hand
always touching, and following up, her right, in which, of course,
she held the pen. No line was indicated by any contrivance, but
she wrote straight and freely.
She had, until now, been quite unconscious of the presence of
visitors; but, having her hand placed in that of the gentleman who
accompanied me, she immediately expressed his name upon her
teacher's palm. Indeed her sense of touch is now so exquisite,
that having been acquainted with a person once, she can recognise
him or her after almost any interval. This gentleman had been in
her company, I believe, but very seldom, and certainly had not seen
her for many months. My hand she rejected at once, as she does
that of any man who is a stranger to her. But she retained my
wife's with evident pleasure, kissed her, and examed her dress with
a girl's curiosity and interest.
She was merry and cheerful, and showed much innocent playfulness in
her intercourse with her teacher. Her delight on recognising a
favourite playfellow and companion - herself a blind girl - who
silently, and with an equal enjoyment of the coming surprise, took
a seat beside her, was beautiful to witness. It elicited from her
at first, as other slight circumstances did twice or thrice during
my visit, an uncouth noise which was rather painful to hear. But
of her teacher touching her lips, she immediately desisted, and
embraced her laughingly and affectionately.
I had previously been into another chamber, where a number of blind
boys were swinging, and climbing, and engaged in various sports.
They all clamoured, as we entered, to the assistant-master, who
accompanied us, 'Look at me, Mr. Hart! Please, Mr. Hart, look at
me!' evincing, I thought, even in this, an anxiety peculiar to
their condition, that their little feats of agility should be SEEN.
Among them was a small laughing fellow, who stood aloof,
entertaining himself with a gymnastic exercise for bringing the
arms and chest into play; which he enjoyed mightily; especially
when, in thrusting out his right arm, he brought it into contact
with another boy. Like Laura Bridgman, this young child was deaf,
and dumb, and blind.
Dr. Howe's account of this pupil's first instruction is so very
striking, and so intimately connected with Laura herself, that I
cannot refrain from a short extract. I may premise that the poor
boy's name is Oliver Caswell; that he is thirteen years of age; and
that he was in full possession of all his faculties, until three
years and four months old. He was then attacked by scarlet fever;
in four weeks became deaf; in a few weeks more, blind; in six
months, dumb. He showed his anxious sense of this last
deprivation, by often feeling the lips of other persons when they
were talking, and then putting his hand upon his own, as if to
assure himself that he had them in the right position.
'His thirst for knowledge,' says Dr. Howe, 'proclaimed itself as
soon as he entered the house, by his eager examination of
everything he could feel or smell in his new location. For
instance, treading upon the register of a furnace, he instantly
stooped down, and began to feel it, and soon discovered the way in
which the upper plate moved upon the lower one; but this was not
enough for him, so lying down upon his face, he applied his tongue
first to one, then to the other, and seemed to discover that they
were of different kinds of metal.
'His signs were expressive: and the strictly natural language,
laughing, crying, sighing, kissing, embracing, &c., was perfect.
'Some of the analogical signs which (guided by his faculty of
imitation) he had contrived, were comprehensible; such as the
waving motion of his hand for the motion of a boat, the circular
one for a wheel, &c.
'The first object was to break up the use of these signs and to
substitute for them the use of purely arbitrary ones.
'Profiting by the experience I had gained in the other cases, I
omitted several steps of the process before employed, and commenced
at once with the finger language. Taking, therefore, several
articles having short names, such as key, cup, mug, &c., and with
Laura for an auxiliary, I sat down, and taking his hand, placed it
upon one of them, and then with my own, made the letters KEY. He
felt my hands eagerly with both of his, and on my repeating the
process, he evidently tried to imitate the motions of my fingers.
In a few minutes he contrived to feel the motions of my fingers
with one hand, and holding out the other he tried to imitate them,
laughing most heartily when he succeeded. Laura was by, interested
even to agitation; and the two presented a singular sight: her
face was flushed and anxious, and her fingers twining in among ours
so closely as to follow every motion, but so slightly as not to
embarrass them; while Oliver stood attentive, his head a little
aside, his face turned up, his left hand grasping mine, and his
right held out: at every motion of my fingers his countenance
betokened keen attention; there was an expression of anxiety as he
tried to imitate the motions; then a smile came stealing out as he
thought he could do so, and spread into a joyous laugh the moment
he succeeded, and felt me pat his head, and Laura clap him heartily
upon the back, and jump up and down in her joy.
'He learned more than a half-dozen letters in half an hour, and
seemed delighted with his success, at least in gaining approbation.
His attention then began to flag, and I commenced playing with him.
It was evident that in all this he had merely been imitating the
motions of my fingers, and placing his hand upon the key, cup, &c.,
as part of the process, without any perception of the relation
between the sign and the object.
'When he was tired with play I took him back to the table, and he
was quite ready to begin again his process of imitation. He soon
learned to make the letters for KEY, PEN, PIN; and by having the
object repeatedly placed in his hand, he at last perceived the
relation I wished to establish between them. This was evident,
because, when I made the letters PIN, or PEN, or CUP, he would
select the article.
'The perception of this relation was not accompanied by that
radiant flash of intelligence, and that glow of joy, which marked
the delightful moment when Laura first perceived it. I then placed
all the articles on the table, and going away a little distance
with the children, placed Oliver's fingers in the positions to
spell KEY, on which Laura went and brought the article: the little
fellow seemed much amused by this, and looked very attentive and
smiling. I then caused him to make the letters BREAD, and in an
instant Laura went and brought him a piece: he smelled at it; put
it to his lips; cocked up his head with a most knowing look; seemed
to reflect a moment; and then laughed outright, as much as to say,
"Aha! I understand now how something may be made out of this."
'It was now clear that he had the capacity and inclination to
learn, that he was a proper subject for instruction, and needed
only persevering attention. I therefore put him in the hands of an
intelligent teacher, nothing doubting of his rapid progress.'
Well may this gentleman call that a delightful moment, in which
some distant promise of her present state first gleamed upon the
darkened mind of Laura Bridgman. Throughout his life, the
recollection of that moment will be to him a source of pure,
unfading happiness; nor will it shine less brightly on the evening
of his days of Noble Usefulness.
The affection which exists between these two - the master and the
pupil - is as far removed from all ordinary care and regard, as the
circumstances in which it has had its growth, are apart from the
common occurrences of life. He is occupied now, in devising means
of imparting to her, higher knowledge; and of conveying to her some
adequate idea of the Great Creator of that universe in which, dark
and silent and scentless though it be to her, she has such deep
delight and glad enjoyment.
Ye who have eyes and see not, and have ears and hear not; ye who
are as the hypocrites of sad countenances, and disfigure your faces
that ye may seem unto men to fast; learn healthy cheerfulness, and
mild contentment, from the deaf, and dumb, and blind! Self-elected
saints with gloomy brows, this sightless, earless, voiceless child
may teach you lessons you will do well to follow. Let that poor
hand of hers lie gently on your hearts; for there may be something
in its healing touch akin to that of the Great Master whose
precepts you misconstrue, whose lessons you pervert, of whose
charity and sympathy with all the world, not one among you in his
daily practice knows as much as many of the worst among those
fallen sinners, to whom you are liberal in nothing but the
preachment of perdition!
As I rose to quit the room, a pretty little child of one of the
attendants came running in to greet its father. For the moment, a
child with eyes, among the sightless crowd, impressed me almost as
painfully as the blind boy in the porch had done, two hours ago.
Ah! how much brighter and more deeply blue, glowing and rich though
it had been before, was the scene without, contrasting with the
darkness of so many youthful lives within!
* * * * * *
At SOUTH BOSTON, as it is called, in a situation excellently
adapted for the purpose, several charitable institutions are
clustered together. One of these, is the State Hospital for the
insane; admirably conducted on those enlightened principles of
conciliation and kindness, which twenty years ago would have been
worse than heretical, and which have been acted upon with so much
success in our own pauper Asylum at Hanwell. 'Evince a desire to
show some confidence, and repose some trust, even in mad people,'
said the resident physician, as we walked along the galleries, his
patients flocking round us unrestrained. Of those who deny or
doubt the wisdom of this maxim after witnessing its effects, if
there be such people still alive, I can only say that I hope I may
never be summoned as a Juryman on a Commission of Lunacy whereof
they are the subjects; for I should certainly find them out of
their senses, on such evidence alone.
Each ward in this institution is shaped like a long gallery or
hall, with the dormitories of the patients opening from it on
either hand. Here they work, read, play at skittles, and other
games; and when the weather does not admit of their taking exercise
out of doors, pass the day together. In one of these rooms,
seated, calmly, and quite as a matter of course, among a throng of
mad-women, black and white, were the physician's wife and another
lady, with a couple of children. These ladies were graceful and
handsome; and it was not difficult to perceive at a glance that
even their presence there, had a highly beneficial influence on the
patients who were grouped about them.
Leaning her head against the chimney-piece, with a great assumption
of dignity and refinement of manner, sat an elderly female, in as
many scraps of finery as Madge Wildfire herself. Her head in
particular was so strewn with scraps of gauze and cotton and bits
of paper, and had so many queer odds and ends stuck all about it,
that it looked like a bird's-nest. She was radiant with imaginary
jewels; wore a rich pair of undoubted gold spectacles; and
gracefully dropped upon her lap, as we approached, a very old
greasy newspaper, in which I dare say she had been reading an
account of her own presentation at some Foreign Court.
I have been thus particular in describing her, because she will
serve to exemplify the physician's manner of acquiring and
retaining the confidence of his patients.
'This,' he said aloud, taking me by the hand, and advancing to the
fantastic figure with great politeness - not raising her suspicions
by the slightest look or whisper, or any kind of aside, to me:
'This lady is the hostess of this mansion, sir. It belongs to her.
Nobody else has anything whatever to do with it. It is a large
establishment, as you see, and requires a great number of
attendants. She lives, you observe, in the very first style. She
is kind enough to receive my visits, and to permit my wife and
family to reside here; for which it is hardly necessary to say, we
are much indebted to her. She is exceedingly courteous, you
perceive,' on this hint she bowed condescendingly, 'and will permit
me to have the pleasure of introducing you: a gentleman from
England, Ma'am: newly arrived from England, after a very
tempestuous passage: Mr. Dickens, - the lady of the house!'
We exchanged the most dignified salutations with profound gravity
and respect, and so went on. The rest of the madwomen seemed to
understand the joke perfectly (not only in this case, but in all
the others, except their own), and be highly amused by it. The
nature of their several kinds of insanity was made known to me in
the same way, and we left each of them in high good humour. Not
only is a thorough confidence established, by those means, between
the physician and patient, in respect of the nature and extent of
their hallucinations, but it is easy to understand that
opportunities are afforded for seizing any moment of reason, to
startle them by placing their own delusion before them in its most
incongruous and ridiculous light.
Every patient in this asylum sits down to dinner every day with a
knife and fork; and in the midst of them sits the gentleman, whose
manner of dealing with his charges, I have just described. At
every meal, moral influence alone restrains the more violent among
them from cutting the throats of the rest; but the effect of that
influence is reduced to an absolute certainty, and is found, even
as a means of restraint, to say nothing of it as a means of cure, a
hundred times more efficacious than all the strait-waistcoats,
fetters, and handcuffs, that ignorance, prejudice, and cruelty have
manufactured since the creation of the world.
In the labour department, every patient is as freely trusted with
the tools of his trade as if he were a sane man. In the garden,
and on the farm, they work with spades, rakes, and hoes. For
amusement, they walk, run, fish, paint, read, and ride out to take
the air in carriages provided for the purpose. They have among
themselves a sewing society to make clothes for the poor, which
holds meetings, passes resolutions, never comes to fisty-cuffs or
bowie-knives as sane assemblies have been known to do elsewhere;
and conducts all its proceedings with the greatest decorum. The
irritability, which would otherwise be expended on their own flesh,
clothes, and furniture, is dissipated in these pursuits. They are
cheerful, tranquil, and healthy.
Once a week they have a ball, in which the Doctor and his family,
with all the nurses and attendants, take an active part. Dances
and marches are performed alternately, to the enlivening strains of
a piano; and now and then some gentleman or lady (whose proficiency
has been previously ascertained) obliges the company with a song:
nor does it ever degenerate, at a tender crisis, into a screech or
howl; wherein, I must confess, I should have thought the danger
lay. At an early hour they all meet together for these festive
purposes; at eight o'clock refreshments are served; and at nine
they separate.
Immense politeness and good breeding are observed throughout. They
all take their tone from the Doctor; and he moves a very
Chesterfield among the company. Like other assemblies, these
entertainments afford a fruitful topic of conversation among the
ladies for some days; and the gentlemen are so anxious to shine on
these occasions, that they have been sometimes found 'practising
their steps' in private, to cut a more distinguished figure in the
dance.
It is obvious that one great feature of this system, is the
inculcation and encouragement, even among such unhappy persons, of
a decent self-respect. Something of the same spirit pervades all
the Institutions at South Boston.
There is the House of Industry. In that branch of it, which is
devoted to the reception of old or otherwise helpless paupers,
these words are painted on the walls: 'WORTHY OF NOTICE. SELF-
GOVERNMENT, QUIETUDE, AND PEACE, ARE BLESSINGS.' It is not assumed
and taken for granted that being there they must be evil-disposed
and wicked people, before whose vicious eyes it is necessary to
flourish threats and harsh restraints. They are met at the very
threshold with this mild appeal. All within-doors is very plain
and simple, as it ought to be, but arranged with a view to peace
and comfort. It costs no more than any other plan of arrangement,
but it speaks an amount of consideration for those who are reduced
to seek a shelter there, which puts them at once upon their
gratitude and good behaviour. Instead of being parcelled out in
great, long, rambling wards, where a certain amount of weazen life
may mope, and pine, and shiver, all day long, the building is
divided into separate rooms, each with its share of light and air.
In these, the better kind of paupers live. They have a motive for
exertion and becoming pride, in the desire to make these little
chambers comfortable and decent.
I do not remember one but it was clean and neat, and had its plant
or two upon the window-sill, or row of crockery upon the shelf, or
small display of coloured prints upon the whitewashed wall, or,
perhaps, its wooden clock behind the door.
The orphans and young children are in an adjoining building
separate from this, but a part of the same Institution. Some are
such little creatures, that the stairs are of Lilliputian
measurement, fitted to their tiny strides. The same consideration
for their years and weakness is expressed in their very seats,
which are perfect curiosities, and look like articles of furniture
for a pauper doll's-house. I can imagine the glee of our Poor Law
Commissioners at the notion of these seats having arms and backs;
but small spines being of older date than their occupation of the
Board-room at Somerset House, I thought even this provision very
merciful and kind.
Here again, I was greatly pleased with the inscriptions on the
wall, which were scraps of plain morality, easily remembered and
understood: such as 'Love one another' - 'God remembers the
smallest creature in his creation:' and straightforward advice of
that nature. The books and tasks of these smallest of scholars,
were adapted, in the same judicious manner, to their childish
powers. When we had examined these lessons, four morsels of girls
(of whom one was blind) sang a little song, about the merry month
of May, which I thought (being extremely dismal) would have suited
an English November better. That done, we went to see their
sleeping-rooms on the floor above, in which the arrangements were
no less excellent and gentle than those we had seen below. And
after observing that the teachers were of a class and character
well suited to the spirit of the place, I took leave of the infants
with a lighter heart than ever I have taken leave of pauper infants
yet.
Connected with the House of Industry, there is also an Hospital,
which was in the best order, and had, I am glad to say, many beds
unoccupied. It had one fault, however, which is common to all
American interiors: the presence of the eternal, accursed,
suffocating, red-hot demon of a stove, whose breath would blight
the purest air under Heaven.
There are two establishments for boys in this same neighbourhood.
One is called the Boylston school, and is an asylum for neglected
and indigent boys who have committed no crime, but who in the
ordinary course of things would very soon be purged of that
distinction if they were not taken from the hungry streets and sent
here. The other is a House of Reformation for Juvenile Offenders.
They are both under the same roof, but the two classes of boys
never come in contact.
The Boylston boys, as may be readily supposed, have very much the
advantage of the others in point of personal appearance. They were
in their school-room when I came upon them, and answered correctly,
without book, such questions as where was England; how far was it;
what was its population; its capital city; its form of government;
and so forth. They sang a song too, about a farmer sowing his
seed: with corresponding action at such parts as ''tis thus he
sows,' 'he turns him round,' 'he claps his hands;' which gave it
greater interest for them, and accustomed them to act together, in
an orderly manner. They appeared exceedingly well-taught, and not
better taught than fed; for a more chubby-looking full-waistcoated
set of boys, I never saw.
The juvenile offenders had not such pleasant faces by a great deal,
and in this establishment there were many boys of colour. I saw
them first at their work (basket-making, and the manufacture of
palm-leaf hats), afterwards in their school, where they sang a
chorus in praise of Liberty: an odd, and, one would think, rather
aggravating, theme for prisoners. These boys are divided into four
classes, each denoted by a numeral, worn on a badge upon the arm.
On the arrival of a new-comer, he is put into the fourth or lowest
class, and left, by good behaviour, to work his way up into the
first. The design and object of this Institution is to reclaim the
youthful criminal by firm but kind and judicious treatment; to make
his prison a place of purification and improvement, not of
demoralisation and corruption; to impress upon him that there is
but one path, and that one sober industry, which can ever lead him
to happiness; to teach him how it may be trodden, if his footsteps
have never yet been led that way; and to lure him back to it if
they have strayed: in a word, to snatch him from destruction, and
restore him to society a penitent and useful member. The
importance of such an establishment, in every point of view, and
with reference to every consideration of humanity and social
policy, requires no comment.
One other establishment closes the catalogue. It is the House of
Correction for the State, in which silence is strictly maintained,
but where the prisoners have the comfort and mental relief of
seeing each other, and of working together. This is the improved
system of Prison Discipline which we have imported into England,
and which has been in successful operation among us for some years
past.
America, as a new and not over-populated country, has in all her
prisons, the one great advantage, of being enabled to find useful
and profitable work for the inmates; whereas, with us, the
prejudice against prison labour is naturally very strong, and
almost insurmountable, when honest men who have not offended
against the laws are frequently doomed to seek employment in vain.
Even in the United States, the principle of bringing convict labour
and free labour into a competition which must obviously be to the
disadvantage of the latter, has already found many opponents, whose
number is not likely to diminish with access of years.
For this very reason though, our best prisons would seem at the
first glance to be better conducted than those of America. The
treadmill is conducted with little or no noise; five hundred men
may pick oakum in the same room, without a sound; and both kinds of
labour admit of such keen and vigilant superintendence, as will
render even a word of personal communication amongst the prisoners
almost impossible. On the other hand, the noise of the loom, the
forge, the carpenter's hammer, or the stonemason's saw, greatly
favour those opportunities of intercourse - hurried and brief no
doubt, but opportunities still - which these several kinds of work,
by rendering it necessary for men to be employed very near to each
other, and often side by side, without any barrier or partition
between them, in their very nature present. A visitor, too,
requires to reason and reflect a little, before the sight of a
number of men engaged in ordinary labour, such as he is accustomed
to out of doors, will impress him half as strongly as the
contemplation of the same persons in the same place and garb would,
if they were occupied in some task, marked and degraded everywhere
as belonging only to felons in jails. In an American state prison
or house of correction, I found it difficult at first to persuade
myself that I was really in a jail: a place of ignominious
punishment and endurance. And to this hour I very much question
whether the humane boast that it is not like one, has its root in
the true wisdom or philosophy of the matter.
I hope I may not be misunderstood on this subject, for it is one in
which I take a strong and deep interest. I incline as little to
the sickly feeling which makes every canting lie or maudlin speech
of a notorious criminal a subject of newspaper report and general
sympathy, as I do to those good old customs of the good old times
which made England, even so recently as in the reign of the Third
King George, in respect of her criminal code and her prison
regulations, one of the most bloody-minded and barbarous countries
on the earth. If I thought it would do any good to the rising
generation, I would cheerfully give my consent to the disinterment
of the bones of any genteel highwayman (the more genteel, the more
cheerfully), and to their exposure, piecemeal, on any sign-post,
gate, or gibbet, that might be deemed a good elevation for the
purpose. My reason is as well convinced that these gentry were as
utterly worthless and debauched villains, as it is that the laws
and jails hardened them in their evil courses, or that their
wonderful escapes were effected by the prison-turnkeys who, in
those admirable days, had always been felons themselves, and were,
to the last, their bosom-friends and pot-companions. At the same
time I know, as all men do or should, that the subject of Prison
Discipline is one of the highest importance to any community; and
that in her sweeping reform and bright example to other countries
on this head, America has shown great wisdom, great benevolence,
and exalted policy. In contrasting her system with that which we
have modelled upon it, I merely seek to show that with all its
drawbacks, ours has some advantages of its own.
The House of Correction which has led to these remarks, is not
walled, like other prisons, but is palisaded round about with tall
rough stakes, something after the manner of an enclosure for
keeping elephants in, as we see it represented in Eastern prints
and pictures. The prisoners wear a parti-coloured dress; and those
who are sentenced to hard labour, work at nail-making, or stone-
cutting. When I was there, the latter class of labourers were
employed upon the stone for a new custom-house in course of
erection at Boston. They appeared to shape it skilfully and with
expedition, though there were very few among them (if any) who had
not acquired the art within the prison gates.
The women, all in one large room, were employed in making light
clothing, for New Orleans and the Southern States. They did their
work in silence like the men; and like them were over-looked by the
person contracting for their labour, or by some agent of his
appointment. In addition to this, they are every moment liable to
be visited by the prison officers appointed for that purpose.
The arrangements for cooking, washing of clothes, and so forth, are
much upon the plan of those I have seen at home. Their mode of
bestowing the prisoners at night (which is of general adoption)
differs from ours, and is both simple and effective. In the centre
of a lofty area, lighted by windows in the four walls, are five
tiers of cells, one above the other; each tier having before it a
light iron gallery, attainable by stairs of the same construction
and material: excepting the lower one, which is on the ground.
Behind these, back to back with them and facing the opposite wall,
are five corresponding rows of cells, accessible by similar means:
so that supposing the prisoners locked up in their cells, an
officer stationed on the ground, with his back to the wall, has
half their number under his eye at once; the remaining half being
equally under the observation of another officer on the opposite
side; and all in one great apartment. Unless this watch be
corrupted or sleeping on his post, it is impossible for a man to
escape; for even in the event of his forcing the iron door of his
cell without noise (which is exceedingly improbable), the moment he
appears outside, and steps into that one of the five galleries on
which it is situated, he must be plainly and fully visible to the
officer below. Each of these cells holds a small truckle bed, in
which one prisoner sleeps; never more. It is small, of course; and
the door being not solid, but grated, and without blind or curtain,
the prisoner within is at all times exposed to the observation and
inspection of any guard who may pass along that tier at any hour or
minute of the night. Every day, the prisoners receive their
dinner, singly, through a trap in the kitchen wall; and each man
carries his to his sleeping cell to eat it, where he is locked up,
alone, for that purpose, one hour. The whole of this arrangement
struck me as being admirable; and I hope that the next new prison
we erect in England may be built on this plan.
I was given to understand that in this prison no swords or fire-
arms, or even cudgels, are kept; nor is it probable that, so long
as its present excellent management continues, any weapon,
offensive or defensive, will ever be required within its bounds.
Such are the Institutions at South Boston! In all of them, the
unfortunate or degenerate citizens of the State are carefully
instructed in their duties both to God and man; are surrounded by
all reasonable means of comfort and happiness that their condition
will admit of; are appealed to, as members of the great human
family, however afflicted, indigent, or fallen; are ruled by the
strong Heart, and not by the strong (though immeasurably weaker)
Hand. I have described them at some length; firstly, because their
worth demanded it; and secondly, because I mean to take them for a
model, and to content myself with saying of others we may come to,
whose design and purpose are the same, that in this or that respect
they practically fail, or differ.
I wish by this account of them, imperfect in its execution, but in
its just intention, honest, I could hope to convey to my readers
one-hundredth part of the gratification, the sights I have
described, afforded me.
* * * * * *
To an Englishman, accustomed to the paraphernalia of Westminster
Hall, an American Court of Law is as odd a sight as, I suppose, an
English Court of Law would be to an American. Except in the
Supreme Court at Washington (where the judges wear a plain black
robe), there is no such thing as a wig or gown connected with the
administration of justice. The gentlemen of the bar being
barristers and attorneys too (for there is no division of those
functions as in England) are no more removed from their clients
than attorneys in our Court for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors
are, from theirs. The jury are quite at home, and make themselves
as comfortable as circumstances will permit. The witness is so
little elevated above, or put aloof from, the crowd in the court,
that a stranger entering during a pause in the proceedings would
find it difficult to pick him out from the rest. And if it chanced
to be a criminal trial, his eyes, in nine cases out of ten, would
wander to the dock in search of the prisoner, in vain; for that
gentleman would most likely be lounging among the most
distinguished ornaments of the legal profession, whispering
suggestions in his counsel's ear, or making a toothpick out of an
old quill with his penknife.
I could not but notice these differences, when I visited the courts
at Boston. I was much surprised at first, too, to observe that the
counsel who interrogated the witness under examination at the time,
did so SITTING. But seeing that he was also occupied in writing
down the answers, and remembering that he was alone and had no
'junior,' I quickly consoled myself with the reflection that law
was not quite so expensive an article here, as at home; and that
the absence of sundry formalities which we regard as indispensable,
had doubtless a very favourable influence upon the bill of costs.
In every Court, ample and commodious provision is made for the
accommodation of the citizens. This is the case all through
America. In every Public Institution, the right of the people to
attend, and to have an interest in the proceedings, is most fully
and distinctly recognised. There are no grim door-keepers to dole
out their tardy civility by the sixpenny-worth; nor is there, I
sincerely believe, any insolence of office of any kind. Nothing
national is exhibited for money; and no public officer is a
showman. We have begun of late years to imitate this good example.
I hope we shall continue to do so; and that in the fulness of time,
even deans and chapters may be converted.
In the civil court an action was trying, for damages sustained in
some accident upon a railway. The witnesses had been examined, and
counsel was addressing the jury. The learned gentleman (like a few
of his English brethren) was desperately long-winded, and had a
remarkable capacity of saying the same thing over and over again.
His great theme was 'Warren the ENGINE driver,' whom he pressed
into the service of every sentence he uttered. I listened to him
for about a quarter of an hour; and, coming out of court at the
expiration of that time, without the faintest ray of enlightenment
as to the merits of the case, felt as if I were at home again.
In the prisoner's cell, waiting to be examined by the magistrate on
a charge of theft, was a boy. This lad, instead of being committed
to a common jail, would be sent to the asylum at South Boston, and
there taught a trade; and in the course of time he would be bound
apprentice to some respectable master. Thus, his detection in this
offence, instead of being the prelude to a life of infamy and a
miserable death, would lead, there was a reasonable hope, to his
being reclaimed from vice, and becoming a worthy member of society.
I am by no means a wholesale admirer of our legal solemnities, many
of which impress me as being exceedingly ludicrous. Strange as it
may seem too, there is undoubtedly a degree of protection in the
wig and gown - a dismissal of individual responsibility in dressing
for the part - which encourages that insolent bearing and language,
and that gross perversion of the office of a pleader for The Truth,
so frequent in our courts of law. Still, I cannot help doubting
whether America, in her desire to shake off the absurdities and
abuses of the old system, may not have gone too far into the
opposite extreme; and whether it is not desirable, especially in
the small community of a city like this, where each man knows the
other, to surround the administration of justice with some
artificial barriers against the 'Hail fellow, well met' deportment
of everyday life. All the aid it can have in the very high
character and ability of the Bench, not only here but elsewhere, it
has, and well deserves to have; but it may need something more:
not to impress the thoughtful and the well-informed, but the
ignorant and heedless; a class which includes some prisoners and
many witnesses. These institutions were established, no doubt,
upon the principle that those who had so large a share in making
the laws, would certainly respect them. But experience has proved
this hope to be fallacious; for no men know better than the judges
of America, that on the occasion of any great popular excitement
the law is powerless, and cannot, for the time, assert its own
supremacy.
The tone of society in Boston is one of perfect politeness,
courtesy, and good breeding. The ladies are unquestionably very
beautiful - in face: but there I am compelled to stop. Their
education is much as with us; neither better nor worse. I had
heard some very marvellous stories in this respect; but not
believing them, was not disappointed. Blue ladies there are, in
Boston; but like philosophers of that colour and sex in most other
latitudes, they rather desire to be thought superior than to be so.
Evangelical ladies there are, likewise, whose attachment to the
forms of religion, and horror of theatrical entertainments, are
most exemplary. Ladies who have a passion for attending lectures
are to be found among all classes and all conditions. In the kind
of provincial life which prevails in cities such as this, the
Pulpit has great influence. The peculiar province of the Pulpit in
New England (always excepting the Unitarian Ministry) would appear
to be the denouncement of all innocent and rational amusements.
The church, the chapel, and the lecture-room, are the only means of
excitement excepted; and to the church, the chapel, and the
lecture-room, the ladies resort in crowds.
Wherever religion is resorted to, as a strong drink, and as an
escape from the dull monotonous round of home, those of its
ministers who pepper the highest will be the surest to please.
They who strew the Eternal Path with the greatest amount of
brimstone, and who most ruthlessly tread down the flowers and
leaves that grow by the wayside, will be voted the most righteous;
and they who enlarge with the greatest pertinacity on the
difficulty of getting into heaven, will be considered by all true
believers certain of going there: though it would be hard to say
by what process of reasoning this conclusion is arrived at. It is
so at home, and it is so abroad. With regard to the other means of
excitement, the Lecture, it has at least the merit of being always
new. One lecture treads so quickly on the heels of another, that
none are remembered; and the course of this month may be safely
repeated next, with its charm of novelty unbroken, and its interest
unabated.
The fruits of the earth have their growth in corruption. Out of
the rottenness of these things, there has sprung up in Boston a
sect of philosophers known as Transcendentalists. On inquiring
what this appellation might be supposed to signify, I was given to
understand that whatever was unintelligible would be certainly
transcendental. Not deriving much comfort from this elucidation, I
pursued the inquiry still further, and found that the
Transcendentalists are followers of my friend Mr. Carlyle, or I
should rather say, of a follower of his, Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson.
This gentleman has written a volume of Essays, in which, among much
that is dreamy and fanciful (if he will pardon me for saying so),
there is much more that is true and manly, honest and bold.
Transcendentalism has its occasional vagaries (what school has
not?), but it has good healthful qualities in spite of them; not
least among the number a hearty disgust of Cant, and an aptitude to
detect her in all the million varieties of her everlasting
wardrobe. And therefore if I were a Bostonian, I think I would be
a Transcendentalist.
The only preacher I heard in Boston was Mr. Taylor, who addresses
himself peculiarly to seamen, and who was once a mariner himself.
I found his chapel down among the shipping, in one of the narrow,
old, water-side streets, with a gay blue flag waving freely from
its roof. In the gallery opposite to the pulpit were a little
choir of male and female singers, a violoncello, and a violin. The
preacher already sat in the pulpit, which was raised on pillars,
and ornamented behind him with painted drapery of a lively and
somewhat theatrical appearance. He looked a weather-beaten hard-
featured man, of about six or eight and fifty; with deep lines
graven as it were into his face, dark hair, and a stern, keen eye.
Yet the general character of his countenance was pleasant and
agreeable. The service commenced with a hymn, to which succeeded
an extemporary prayer. It had the fault of frequent repetition,
incidental to all such prayers; but it was plain and comprehensive
in its doctrines, and breathed a tone of general sympathy and
charity, which is not so commonly a characteristic of this form of
address to the Deity as it might be. That done he opened his
discourse, taking for his text a passage from the Song of Solomon,
laid upon the desk before the commencement of the service by some
unknown member of the congregation: 'Who is this coming up from
the wilderness, leaning on the arm of her beloved!'
He handled his text in all kinds of ways, and twisted it into all
manner of shapes; but always ingeniously, and with a rude
eloquence, well adapted to the comprehension of his hearers.
Indeed if I be not mistaken, he studied their sympathies and
understandings much more than the display of his own powers. His
imagery was all drawn from the sea, and from the incidents of a
seaman's life; and was often remarkably good. He spoke to them of
'that glorious man, Lord Nelson,' and of Collingwood; and drew
nothing in, as the saying is, by the head and shoulders, but
brought it to bear upon his purpose, naturally, and with a sharp
mind to its effect. Sometimes, when much excited with his subject,
he had an odd way - compounded of John Bunyan, and Balfour of
Burley - of taking his great quarto Bible under his arm and pacing
up and down the pulpit with it; looking steadily down, meantime,
into the midst of the congregation. Thus, when he applied his text
to the first assemblage of his hearers, and pictured the wonder of
the church at their presumption in forming a congregation among
themselves, he stopped short with his Bible under his arm in the
manner I have described, and pursued his discourse after this
manner:
'Who are these - who are they - who are these fellows? where do
they come from? Where are they going to? - Come from! What's the
answer?' - leaning out of the pulpit, and pointing downward with
his right hand: 'From below!' - starting back again, and looking
at the sailors before him: 'From below, my brethren. From under
the hatches of sin, battened down above you by the evil one.
That's where you came from!' - a walk up and down the pulpit: 'and
where are you going' - stopping abruptly: 'where are you going?
Aloft!' - very softly, and pointing upward: 'Aloft!' - louder:
'aloft!' - louder still: 'That's where you are going - with a fair
wind, - all taut and trim, steering direct for Heaven in its glory,
where there are no storms or foul weather, and where the wicked
cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.' - Another walk:
'That's where you're going to, my friends. That's it. That's the
place. That's the port. That's the haven. It's a blessed harbour
- still water there, in all changes of the winds and tides; no
driving ashore upon the rocks, or slipping your cables and running
out to sea, there: Peace - Peace - Peace - all peace!' - Another
walk, and patting the Bible under his left arm: 'What! These
fellows are coming from the wilderness, are they? Yes. From the
dreary, blighted wilderness of Iniquity, whose only crop is Death.
But do they lean upon anything - do they lean upon nothing, these
poor seamen?' - Three raps upon the Bible: 'Oh yes. - Yes. - They
lean upon the arm of their Beloved' - three more raps: 'upon the
arm of their Beloved' - three more, and a walk: 'Pilot, guiding-
star, and compass, all in one, to all hands - here it is' - three
more: 'Here it is. They can do their seaman's duty manfully, and
be easy in their minds in the utmost peril and danger, with this' -
two more: 'They can come, even these poor fellows can come, from
the wilderness leaning on the arm of their Beloved, and go up - up
- up!' - raising his hand higher, and higher, at every repetition
of the word, so that he stood with it at last stretched above his
head, regarding them in a strange, rapt manner, and pressing the
book triumphantly to his breast, until he gradually subsided into
some other portion of his discourse.
I have cited this, rather as an instance of the preacher's
eccentricities than his merits, though taken in connection with his
look and manner, and the character of his audience, even this was
striking. It is possible, however, that my favourable impression
of him may have been greatly influenced and strengthened, firstly,
by his impressing upon his hearers that the true observance of
religion was not inconsistent with a cheerful deportment and an
exact discharge of the duties of their station, which, indeed, it
scrupulously required of them; and secondly, by his cautioning them
not to set up any monopoly in Paradise and its mercies. I never
heard these two points so wisely touched (if indeed I have ever
heard them touched at all), by any preacher of that kind before.
Having passed the time I spent in Boston, in making myself
acquainted with these things, in settling the course I should take
in my future travels, and in mixing constantly with its society, I
am not aware that I have any occasion to prolong this chapter.
Such of its social customs as I have not mentioned, however, may be
told in a very few words.
The usual dinner-hour is two o'clock. A dinner party takes place
at five; and at an evening party, they seldom sup later than
eleven; so that it goes hard but one gets home, even from a rout,
by midnight. I never could find out any difference between a party
at Boston and a party in London, saving that at the former place
all assemblies are held at more rational hours; that the
conversation may possibly be a little louder and more cheerful; and
a guest is usually expected to ascend to the very top of the house
to take his cloak off; that he is certain to see, at every dinner,
an unusual amount of poultry on the table; and at every supper, at
least two mighty bowls of hot stewed oysters, in any one of which a
half-grown Duke of Clarence might be smothered easily.
There are two theatres in Boston, of good size and construction,
but sadly in want of patronage. The few ladies who resort to them,
sit, as of right, in the front rows of the boxes.
The bar is a large room with a stone floor, and there people stand
and smoke, and lounge about, all the evening: dropping in and out
as the humour takes them. There too the stranger is initiated into
the mysteries of Gin-sling, Cock-tail, Sangaree, Mint Julep,
Sherry-cobbler, Timber Doodle, and other rare drinks. The house is
full of boarders, both married and single, many of whom sleep upon
the premises, and contract by the week for their board and lodging:
the charge for which diminishes as they go nearer the sky to roost.
A public table is laid in a very handsome hall for breakfast, and
for dinner, and for supper. The party sitting down together to
these meals will vary in number from one to two hundred: sometimes
more. The advent of each of these epochs in the day is proclaimed
by an awful gong, which shakes the very window-frames as it
reverberates through the house, and horribly disturbs nervous
foreigners. There is an ordinary for ladies, and an ordinary for
gentlemen.
In our private room the cloth could not, for any earthly
consideration, have been laid for dinner without a huge glass dish
of cranberries in the middle of the table; and breakfast would have
been no breakfast unless the principal dish were a deformed beef-
steak with a great flat bone in the centre, swimming in hot butter,
and sprinkled with the very blackest of all possible pepper. Our
bedroom was spacious and airy, but (like every bedroom on this side
of the Atlantic) very bare of furniture, having no curtains to the
French bedstead or to the window. It had one unusual luxury,
however, in the shape of a wardrobe of painted wood, something
smaller than an English watch-box; or if this comparison should be
insufficient to convey a just idea of its dimensions, they may be
estimated from the fact of my having lived for fourteen days and
nights in the firm belief that it was a shower-bath.
CHAPTER IV - AN AMERICAN RAILROAD. LOWELL AND ITS FACTORY SYSTEM
BEFORE leaving Boston, I devoted one day to an excursion to Lowell.
I assign a separate chapter to this visit; not because I am about
to describe it at any great length, but because I remember it as a
thing by itself, and am desirous that my readers should do the
same.
I made acquaintance with an American railroad, on this occasion,
for the first time. As these works are pretty much alike all
through the States, their general characteristics are easily
described.
There are no first and second class carriages as with us; but there
is a gentleman's car and a ladies' car: the main distinction
between which is that in the first, everybody smokes; and in the
second, nobody does. As a black man never travels with a white
one, there is also a negro car; which is a great, blundering,
clumsy chest, such as Gulliver put to sea in, from the kingdom of
Brobdingnag. There is a great deal of jolting, a great deal of
noise, a great deal of wall, not much window, a locomotive engine,
a shriek, and a bell.
The cars are like shabby omnibuses, but larger: holding thirty,
forty, fifty, people. The seats, instead of stretching from end to
end, are placed crosswise. Each seat holds two persons. There is
a long row of them on each side of the caravan, a narrow passage up
the middle, and a door at both ends. In the centre of the carriage
there is usually a stove, fed with charcoal or anthracite coal;
which is for the most part red-hot. It is insufferably close; and
you see the hot air fluttering between yourself and any other
object you may happen to look at, like the ghost of smoke.
In the ladies' car, there are a great many gentlemen who have
ladies with them. There are also a great many ladies who have
nobody with them: for any lady may travel alone, from one end of
the United States to the other, and be certain of the most
courteous and considerate treatment everywhere. The conductor or
check-taker, or guard, or whatever he may be, wears no uniform. He
walks up and down the car, and in and out of it, as his fancy
dictates; leans against the door with his hands in his pockets and
stares at you, if you chance to be a stranger; or enters into
conversation with the passengers about him. A great many
newspapers are pulled out, and a few of them are read. Everybody
talks to you, or to anybody else who hits his fancy. If you are an
Englishman, he expects that that railroad is pretty much like an
English railroad. If you say 'No,' he says 'Yes?'
(interrogatively), and asks in what respect they differ. You
enumerate the heads of difference, one by one, and he says 'Yes?'
(still interrogatively) to each. Then he guesses that you don't
travel faster in England; and on your replying that you do, says
'Yes?' again (still interrogatively), and it is quite evident,
don't believe it. After a long pause he remarks, partly to you,
and partly to the knob on the top of his stick, that 'Yankees are
reckoned to be considerable of a go-ahead people too;' upon which
YOU say 'Yes,' and then HE says 'Yes' again (affirmatively this
time); and upon your looking out of window, tells you that behind
that hill, and some three miles from the next station, there is a
clever town in a smart lo-ca-tion, where he expects you have
concluded to stop. Your answer in the negative naturally leads to
more questions in reference to your intended route (always
pronounced rout); and wherever you are going, you invariably learn
that you can't get there without immense difficulty and danger, and
that all the great sights are somewhere else.
If a lady take a fancy to any male passenger's seat, the gentleman
who accompanies her gives him notice of the fact, and he
immediately vacates it with great politeness. Politics are much
discussed, so are banks, so is cotton. Quiet people avoid the
question of the Presidency, for there will be a new election in
three years and a half, and party feeling runs very high: the
great constitutional feature of this institution being, that
directly the acrimony of the last election is over, the acrimony of
the next one begins; which is an unspeakable comfort to all strong
politicians and true lovers of their country: that is to say, to
ninety-nine men and boys out of every ninety-nine and a quarter.
Except when a branch road joins the main one, there is seldom more
than one track of rails; so that the road is very narrow, and the
view, where there is a deep cutting, by no means extensive. When
there is not, the character of the scenery is always the same.
Mile after mile of stunted trees: some hewn down by the axe, some
blown down by the wind, some half fallen and resting on their
neighbours, many mere logs half hidden in the swamp, others
mouldered away to spongy chips. The very soil of the earth is made
up of minute fragments such as these; each pool of stagnant water
has its crust of vegetable rottenness; on every side there are the
boughs, and trunks, and stumps of trees, in every possible stage of
decay, decomposition, and neglect. Now you emerge for a few brief
minutes on an open country, glittering with some bright lake or
pool, broad as many an English river, but so small here that it
scarcely has a name; now catch hasty glimpses of a distant town,
with its clean white houses and their cool piazzas, its prim New
England church and school-house; when whir-r-r-r! almost before you
have seen them, comes the same dark screen: the stunted trees, the
stumps, the logs, the stagnant water - all so like the last that
you seem to have been transported back again by magic.
The train calls at stations in the woods, where the wild
impossibility of anybody having the smallest reason to get out, is
only to be equalled by the apparently desperate hopelessness of
there being anybody to get in. It rushes across the turnpike road,
where there is no gate, no policeman, no signal: nothing but a
rough wooden arch, on which is painted 'WHEN THE BELL RINGS, LOOK
OUT FOR THE LOCOMOTIVE.' On it whirls headlong, dives through the
woods again, emerges in the light, clatters over frail arches,
rumbles upon the heavy ground, shoots beneath a wooden bridge which
intercepts the light for a second like a wink, suddenly awakens all
the slumbering echoes in the main street of a large town, and
dashes on haphazard, pell-mell, neck-or-nothing, down the middle of
the road. There - with mechanics working at their trades, and
people leaning from their doors and windows, and boys flying kites
and playing marbles, and men smoking, and women talking, and
children crawling, and pigs burrowing, and unaccustomed horses
plunging and rearing, close to the very rails - there - on, on, on
- tears the mad dragon of an engine with its train of cars;
scattering in all directions a shower of burning sparks from its
wood fire; screeching, hissing, yelling, panting; until at last the
thirsty monster stops beneath a covered way to drink, the people
cluster round, and you have time to breathe again.
I was met at the station at Lowell by a gentleman intimately
connected with the management of the factories there; and gladly
putting myself under his guidance, drove off at once to that
quarter of the town in which the works, the object of my visit,
were situated. Although only just of age - for if my recollection
serve me, it has been a manufacturing town barely one-and-twenty
years - Lowell is a large, populous, thriving place. Those
indications of its youth which first attract the eye, give it a
quaintness and oddity of character which, to a visitor from the old
country, is amusing enough. It was a very dirty winter's day, and
nothing in the whole town looked old to me, except the mud, which
in some parts was almost knee-deep, and might have been deposited
there, on the subsiding of the waters after the Deluge. In one
place, there was a new wooden church, which, having no steeple, and
being yet unpainted, looked like an enormous packing-case without
any direction upon it. In another there was a large hotel, whose
walls and colonnades were so crisp, and thin, and slight, that it
had exactly the appearance of being built with cards. I was
careful not to draw my breath as we passed, and trembled when I saw
a workman come out upon the roof, lest with one thoughtless stamp
of his foot he should crush the structure beneath him, and bring it
rattling down. The very river that moves the machinery in the
mills (for they are all worked by water power), seems to acquire a
new character from the fresh buildings of bright red brick and
painted wood among which it takes its course; and to be as light-
headed, thoughtless, and brisk a young river, in its murmurings and
tumblings, as one would desire to see. One would swear that every
'Bakery,' 'Grocery,' and 'Bookbindery,' and other kind of store,
took its shutters down for the first time, and started in business
yesterday. The golden pestles and mortars fixed as signs upon the
sun-blind frames outside the Druggists', appear to have been just
turned out of the United States' Mint; and when I saw a baby of
some week or ten days old in a woman's arms at a street corner, I
found myself unconsciously wondering where it came from: never
supposing for an instant that it could have been born in such a
young town as that.
There are several factories in Lowell, each of which belongs to
what we should term a Company of Proprietors, but what they call in
America a Corporation. I went over several of these; such as a
woollen factory, a carpet factory, and a cotton factory: examined
them in every part; and saw them in their ordinary working aspect,
with no preparation of any kind, or departure from their ordinary
everyday proceedings. I may add that I am well acquainted with our
manufacturing towns in England, and have visited many mills in
Manchester and elsewhere in the same manner.
I happened to arrive at the first factory just as the dinner hour
was over, and the girls were returning to their work; indeed the
stairs of the mill were thronged with them as I ascended. They
were all well dressed, but not to my thinking above their
condition; for I like to see the humbler classes of society careful
of their dress and appearance, and even, if they please, decorated
with such little trinkets as come within the compass of their
means. Supposing it confined within reasonable limits, I would
always encourage this kind of pride, as a worthy element of self-
respect, in any person I employed; and should no more be deterred
from doing so, because some wretched female referred her fall to a
love of dress, than I would allow my construction of the real
intent and meaning of the Sabbath to be influenced by any warning
to the well-disposed, founded on his backslidings on that
particular day, which might emanate from the rather doubtful
authority of a murderer in Newgate.
These girls, as I have said, were all well dressed: and that
phrase necessarily includes extreme cleanliness. They had
serviceable bonnets, good warm cloaks, and shawls; and were not
above clogs and pattens. Moreover, there were places in the mill
in which they could deposit these things without injury; and there
were conveniences for washing. They were healthy in appearance,
many of them remarkably so, and had the manners and deportment of
young women: not of degraded brutes of burden. If I had seen in
one of those mills (but I did not, though I looked for something of
this kind with a sharp eye), the most lisping, mincing, affected,
and ridiculous young creature that my imagination could suggest, I
should have thought of the careless, moping, slatternly, degraded,
dull reverse (I HAVE seen that), and should have been still well
pleased to look upon her.
The rooms in which they worked, were as well ordered as themselves.
In the windows of some, there were green plants, which were trained
to shade the glass; in all, there was as much fresh air,
cleanliness, and comfort, as the nature of the occupation would
possibly admit of. Out of so large a number of females, many of
whom were only then just verging upon womanhood, it may be
reasonably supposed that some were delicate and fragile in
appearance: no doubt there were. But I solemnly declare, that
from all the crowd I saw in the different factories that day, I
cannot recall or separate one young face that gave me a painful
impression; not one young girl whom, assuming it to be a matter of
necessity that she should gain her daily bread by the labour of her
hands, I would have removed from those works if I had had the
power.
They reside in various boarding-houses near at hand. The owners of
the mills are particularly careful to allow no persons to enter
upon the possession of these houses, whose characters have not
undergone the most searching and thorough inquiry. Any complaint
that is made against them, by the boarders, or by any one else, is
fully investigated; and if good ground of complaint be shown to
exist against them, they are removed, and their occupation is
handed over to some more deserving person. There are a few
children employed in these factories, but not many. The laws of
the State forbid their working more than nine months in the year,
and require that they be educated during the other three. For this
purpose there are schools in Lowell; and there are churches and
chapels of various persuasions, in which the young women may
observe that form of worship in which they have been educated.
At some distance from the factories, and on the highest and
pleasantest ground in the neighbourhood, stands their hospital, or
boarding-house for the sick: it is the best house in those parts,
and was built by an eminent merchant for his own residence. Like
that institution at Boston, which I have before described, it is
not parcelled out into wards, but is divided into convenient
chambers, each of which has all the comforts of a very comfortable
home. The principal medical attendant resides under the same roof;
and were the patients members of his own family, they could not be
better cared for, or attended with greater gentleness and
consideration. The weekly charge in this establishment for each
female patient is three dollars, or twelve shillings English; but
no girl employed by any of the corporations is ever excluded for
want of the means of payment. That they do not very often want the
means, may be gathered from the fact, that in July, 1841, no fewer
than nine hundred and seventy-eight of these girls were depositors
in the Lowell Savings Bank: the amount of whose joint savings was
estimated at one hundred thousand dollars, or twenty thousand
English pounds.
I am now going to state three facts, which will startle a large
class of readers on this side of the Atlantic, very much.
Firstly, there is a joint-stock piano in a great many of the
boarding-houses. Secondly, nearly all these young ladies subscribe
to circulating libraries. Thirdly, they have got up among
themselves a periodical called THE LOWELL OFFERING, 'A repository
of original articles, written exclusively by females actively
employed in the mills,' - which is duly printed, published, and
sold; and whereof I brought away from Lowell four hundred good
solid pages, which I have read from beginning to end.
The large class of readers, startled by these facts, will exclaim,
with one voice, 'How very preposterous!' On my deferentially
inquiring why, they will answer, 'These things are above their
station.' In reply to that objection, I would beg to ask what
their station is.
It is their station to work. And they DO work. They labour in
these mills, upon an average, twelve hours a day, which is
unquestionably work, and pretty tight work too. Perhaps it is
above their station to indulge in such amusements, on any terms.
Are we quite sure that we in England have not formed our ideas of
the 'station' of working people, from accustoming ourselves to the
contemplation of that class as they are, and not as they might be?
I think that if we examine our own feelings, we shall find that the
pianos, and the circulating libraries, and even the Lowell
Offering, startle us by their novelty, and not by their bearing
upon any abstract question of right or wrong.
For myself, I know no station in which, the occupation of to-day
cheerfully done and the occupation of to-morrow cheerfully looked
to, any one of these pursuits is not most humanising and laudable.
I know no station which is rendered more endurable to the person in
it, or more safe to the person out of it, by having ignorance for
its associate. I know no station which has a right to monopolise
the means of mutual instruction, improvement, and rational
entertainment; or which has ever continued to be a station very
long, after seeking to do so.
Of the merits of the Lowell Offering as a literary production, I
will only observe, putting entirely out of sight the fact of the
articles having been written by these girls after the arduous
labours of the day, that it will compare advantageously with a
great many English Annuals. It is pleasant to find that many of
its Tales are of the Mills and of those who work in them; that they
inculcate habits of self-denial and contentment, and teach good
doctrines of enlarged benevolence. A strong feeling for the
beauties of nature, as displayed in the solitudes the writers have
left at home, breathes through its pages like wholesome village
air; and though a circulating library is a favourable school for
the study of such topics, it has very scant allusion to fine
clothes, fine marriages, fine houses, or fine life. Some persons
might object to the papers being signed occasionally with rather
fine names, but this is an American fashion. One of the provinces
of the state legislature of Massachusetts is to alter ugly names
into pretty ones, as the children improve upon the tastes of their
parents. These changes costing little or nothing, scores of Mary
Annes are solemnly converted into Bevelinas every session.
It is said that on the occasion of a visit from General Jackson or
General Harrison to this town (I forget which, but it is not to the
purpose), he walked through three miles and a half of these young
ladies all dressed out with parasols and silk stockings. But as I
am not aware that any worse consequence ensued, than a sudden
looking-up of all the parasols and silk stockings in the market;
and perhaps the bankruptcy of some speculative New Englander who
bought them all up at any price, in expectation of a demand that
never came; I set no great store by the circumstance.
In this brief account of Lowell, and inadequate expression of the
gratification it yielded me, and cannot fail to afford to any
foreigner to whom the condition of such people at home is a subject
of interest and anxious speculation, I have carefully abstained
from drawing a comparison between these factories and those of our
own land. Many of the circumstances whose strong influence has
been at work for years in our manufacturing towns have not arisen
here; and there is no manufacturing population in Lowell, so to
speak: for these girls (often the daughters of small farmers) come
from other States, remain a few years in the mills, and then go
home for good.
The contrast would be a strong one, for it would be between the
Good and Evil, the living light and deepest shadow. I abstain from
it, because I deem it just to do so. But I only the more earnestly
adjure all those whose eyes may rest on these pages, to pause and
reflect upon the difference between this town and those great
haunts of desperate misery: to call to mind, if they can in the
midst of party strife and squabble, the efforts that must be made
to purge them of their suffering and danger: and last, and
foremost, to remember how the precious Time is rushing by.
I returned at night by the same railroad and in the same kind of
car. One of the passengers being exceedingly anxious to expound at
great length to my companion (not to me, of course) the true
principles on which books of travel in America should be written by
Englishmen, I feigned to fall asleep. But glancing all the way out
at window from the corners of my eyes, I found abundance of
entertainment for the rest of the ride in watching the effects of
the wood fire, which had been invisible in the morning but were now
brought out in full relief by the darkness: for we were travelling
in a whirlwind of bright sparks, which showered about us like a
storm of fiery snow.
CHAPTER V - WORCESTER. THE CONNECTICUT RIVER. HARTFORD. NEW
HAVEN. TO NEW YORK
LEAVING Boston on the afternoon of Saturday the fifth of February,
we proceeded by another railroad to Worcester: a pretty New
England town, where we had arranged to remain under the hospitable
roof of the Governor of the State, until Monday morning.
These towns and cities of New England (many of which would be
villages in Old England), are as favourable specimens of rural
America, as their people are of rural Americans. The well-trimmed
lawns and green meadows of home are not there; and the grass,
compared with our ornamental plots and pastures, is rank, and
rough, and wild: but delicate slopes of land, gently-swelling
hills, wooded valleys, and slender streams, abound. Every little
colony of houses has its church and school-house peeping from among
the white roofs and shady trees; every house is the whitest of the
white; every Venetian blind the greenest of the green; every fine
day's sky the bluest of the blue. A sharp dry wind and a slight
frost had so hardened the roads when we alighted at Worcester, that
their furrowed tracks were like ridges of granite. There was the
usual aspect of newness on every object, of course. All the
buildings looked as if they had been built and painted that
morning, and could be taken down on Monday with very little
trouble. In the keen evening air, every sharp outline looked a
hundred times sharper than ever. The clean cardboard colonnades
had no more perspective than a Chinese bridge on a tea-cup, and
appeared equally well calculated for use. The razor-like edges of
the detached cottages seemed to cut the very wind as it whistled
against them, and to send it smarting on its way with a shriller
cry than before. Those slightly-built wooden dwellings behind
which the sun was setting with a brilliant lustre, could be so
looked through and through, that the idea of any inhabitant being
able to hide himself from the public gaze, or to have any secrets
from the public eye, was not entertainable for a moment. Even
where a blazing fire shone through the uncurtained windows of some
distant house, it had the air of being newly lighted, and of
lacking warmth; and instead of awakening thoughts of a snug
chamber, bright with faces that first saw the light round that same
hearth, and ruddy with warm hangings, it came upon one suggestive
of the smell of new mortar and damp walls.
So I thought, at least, that evening. Next morning when the sun
was shining brightly, and the clear church bells were ringing, and
sedate people in their best clothes enlivened the pathway near at
hand and dotted the distant thread of road, there was a pleasant
Sabbath peacefulness on everything, which it was good to feel. It
would have been the better for an old church; better still for some
old graves; but as it was, a wholesome repose and tranquillity
pervaded the scene, which after the restless ocean and the hurried
city, had a doubly grateful influence on the spirits.
We went on next morning, still by railroad, to Springfield. From
that place to Hartford, whither we were bound, is a distance of
only five-and-twenty miles, but at that time of the year the roads
were so bad that the journey would probably have occupied ten or
twelve hours. Fortunately, however, the winter having been
unusually mild, the Connecticut River was 'open,' or, in other
words, not frozen. The captain of a small steamboat was going to
make his first trip for the season that day (the second February
trip, I believe, within the memory of man), and only waited for us
to go on board. Accordingly, we went on board, with as little
delay as might be. He was as good as his word, and started
directly.
It certainly was not called a small steamboat without reason. I
omitted to ask the question, but I should think it must have been
of about half a pony power. Mr. Paap, the celebrated Dwarf, might
have lived and died happily in the cabin, which was fitted with
common sash-windows like an ordinary dwelling-house. These windows
had bright-red curtains, too, hung on slack strings across the
lower panes; so that it looked like the parlour of a Lilliputian
public-house, which had got afloat in a flood or some other water
accident, and was drifting nobody knew where. But even in this
chamber there was a rocking-chair. It would be impossible to get
on anywhere, in America, without a rocking-chair. I am afraid to
tell how many feet short this vessel was, or how many feet narrow:
to apply the words length and width to such measurement would be a
contradiction in terms. But I may state that we all kept the
middle of the deck, lest the boat should unexpectedly tip over; and
that the machinery, by some surprising process of condensation,
worked between it and the keel: the whole forming a warm sandwich,
about three feet thick.
It rained all day as I once thought it never did rain anywhere, but
in the Highlands of Scotland. The river was full of floating
blocks of ice, which were constantly crunching and cracking under
us; and the depth of water, in the course we took to avoid the
larger masses, carried down the middle of the river by the current,
did not exceed a few inches. Nevertheless, we moved onward,
dexterously; and being well wrapped up, bade defiance to the
weather, and enjoyed the journey. The Connecticut River is a fine
stream; and the banks in summer-time are, I have no doubt,
beautiful; at all events, I was told so by a young lady in the
cabin; and she should be a judge of beauty, if the possession of a
quality include the appreciation of it, for a more beautiful
creature I never looked upon.
After two hours and a half of this odd travelling (including a
stoppage at a small town, where we were saluted by a gun
considerably bigger than our own chimney), we reached Hartford, and
straightway repaired to an extremely comfortable hotel: except, as
usual, in the article of bedrooms, which, in almost every place we
visited, were very conducive to early rising.
We tarried here, four days. The town is beautifully situated in a
basin of green hills; the soil is rich, well-wooded, and carefully
improved. It is the seat of the local legislature of Connecticut,
which sage body enacted, in bygone times, the renowned code of
'Blue Laws,' in virtue whereof, among other enlightened provisions,
any citizen who could be proved to have kissed his wife on Sunday,
was punishable, I believe, with the stocks. Too much of the old
Puritan spirit exists in these parts to the present hour; but its
influence has not tended, that I know, to make the people less hard
in their bargains, or more equal in their dealings. As I never
heard of its working that effect anywhere else, I infer that it
never will, here. Indeed, I am accustomed, with reference to great
professions and severe faces, to judge of the goods of the other
world pretty much as I judge of the goods of this; and whenever I
see a dealer in such commodities with too great a display of them
in his window, I doubt the quality of the article within.
In Hartford stands the famous oak in which the charter of King
Charles was hidden. It is now inclosed in a gentleman's garden.
In the State House is the charter itself. I found the courts of
law here, just the same as at Boston; the public institutions
almost as good. The Insane Asylum is admirably conducted, and so
is the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb.
I very much questioned within myself, as I walked through the
Insane Asylum, whether I should have known the attendants from the
patients, but for the few words which passed between the former,
and the Doctor, in reference to the persons under their charge. Of
course I limit this remark merely to their looks; for the
conversation of the mad people was mad enough.
There was one little, prim old lady, of very smiling and good-
humoured appearance, who came sidling up to me from the end of a
long passage, and with a curtsey of inexpressible condescension,
propounded this unaccountable inquiry:
'Does Pontefract still flourish, sir, upon the soil of England?'
'He does, ma'am,' I rejoined.
'When you last saw him, sir, he was - '
'Well, ma'am,' said I, 'extremely well. He begged me to present
his compliments. I never saw him looking better.'
At this, the old lady was very much delighted. After glancing at
me for a moment, as if to be quite sure that I was serious in my
respectful air, she sidled back some paces; sidled forward again;
made a sudden skip (at which I precipitately retreated a step or
two); and said:
'I am an antediluvian, sir.'
I thought the best thing to say was, that I had suspected as much
from the first. Therefore I said so.
'It is an extremely proud and pleasant thing, sir, to be an
antediluvian,' said the old lady.
'I should think it was, ma'am,' I rejoined.
The old lady kissed her hand, gave another skip, smirked and sidled
down the gallery in a most extraordinary manner, and ambled
gracefully into her own bed-chamber.
In another part of the building, there was a male patient in bed;
very much flushed and heated.
'Well,' said he, starting up, and pulling off his night-cap: 'It's
all settled at last. I have arranged it with Queen Victoria.'
'Arranged what?' asked the Doctor.
'Why, that business,' passing his hand wearily across his forehead,
'about the siege of New York.'
'Oh!' said I, like a man suddenly enlightened. For he looked at me
for an answer.
'Yes. Every house without a signal will be fired upon by the
British troops. No harm will be done to the others. No harm at
all. Those that want to be safe, must hoist flags. That's all
they'll have to do. They must hoist flags.'
Even while he was speaking he seemed, I thought, to have some faint
idea that his talk was incoherent. Directly he had said these
words, he lay down again; gave a kind of a groan; and covered his
hot head with the blankets.
There was another: a young man, whose madness was love and music.
After playing on the accordion a march he had composed, he was very
anxious that I should walk into his chamber, which I immediately
did.
By way of being very knowing, and humouring him to the top of his
bent, I went to the window, which commanded a beautiful prospect,
and remarked, with an address upon which I greatly plumed myself:
'What a delicious country you have about these lodgings of yours!'
'Poh!' said he, moving his fingers carelessly over the notes of his
instrument: 'WELL ENOUGH FOR SUCH AN INSTITUTION AS THIS!'
I don't think I was ever so taken aback in all my life.
'I come here just for a whim,' he said coolly. 'That's all.'
'Oh! That's all!' said I.
'Yes. That's all. The Doctor's a smart man. He quite enters into
it. It's a joke of mine. I like it for a time. You needn't
mention it, but I think I shall go out next Tuesday!'
I assured him that I would consider our interview perfectly
confidential; and rejoined the Doctor. As we were passing through
a gallery on our way out, a well-dressed lady, of quiet and
composed manners, came up, and proffering a slip of paper and a
pen, begged that I would oblige her with an autograph, I complied,
and we parted.
'I think I remember having had a few interviews like that, with
ladies out of doors. I hope SHE is not mad?'
'Yes.'
'On what subject? Autographs?'
'No. She hears voices in the air.'
'Well!' thought I, 'it would be well if we could shut up a few
false prophets of these later times, who have professed to do the
same; and I should like to try the experiment on a Mormonist or two
to begin with.'
In this place, there is the best jail for untried offenders in the
world. There is also a very well-ordered State prison, arranged
upon the same plan as that at Boston, except that here, there is
always a sentry on the wall with a loaded gun. It contained at
that time about two hundred prisoners. A spot was shown me in the
sleeping ward, where a watchman was murdered some years since in
the dead of night, in a desperate attempt to escape, made by a
prisoner who had broken from his cell. A woman, too, was pointed
out to me, who, for the murder of her husband, had been a close
prisoner for sixteen years.
'Do you think,' I asked of my conductor, 'that after so very long
an imprisonment, she has any thought or hope of ever regaining her
liberty?'
'Oh dear yes,' he answered. 'To be sure she has.'
'She has no chance of obtaining it, I suppose?'
'Well, I don't know:' which, by-the-bye, is a national answer.
'Her friends mistrust her.'
'What have THEY to do with it?' I naturally inquired.
'Well, they won't petition.'
'But if they did, they couldn't get her out, I suppose?'
'Well, not the first time, perhaps, nor yet the second, but tiring
and wearying for a few years might do it.'
'Does that ever do it?'
'Why yes, that'll do it sometimes. Political friends'll do it
sometimes. It's pretty often done, one way or another.'
I shall always entertain a very pleasant and grateful recollection
of Hartford. It is a lovely place, and I had many friends there,
whom I can never remember with indifference. We left it with no
little regret on the evening of Friday the 11th, and travelled that
night by railroad to New Haven. Upon the way, the guard and I were
formally introduced to each other (as we usually were on such
occasions), and exchanged a variety of small-talk. We reached New
Haven at about eight o'clock, after a journey of three hours, and
put up for the night at the best inn.
New Haven, known also as the City of Elms, is a fine town. Many of
its streets (as its ALIAS sufficiently imports) are planted with
rows of grand old elm-trees; and the same natural ornaments
surround Yale College, an establishment of considerable eminence
and reputation. The various departments of this Institution are
erected in a kind of park or common in the middle of the town,
where they are dimly visible among the shadowing trees. The effect
is very like that of an old cathedral yard in England; and when
their branches are in full leaf, must be extremely picturesque.
Even in the winter time, these groups of well-grown trees,
clustering among the busy streets and houses of a thriving city,
have a very quaint appearance: seeming to bring about a kind of
compromise between town and country; as if each had met the other
half-way, and shaken hands upon it; which is at once novel and
pleasant.
After a night's rest, we rose early, and in good time went down to
the wharf, and on board the packet New York FOR New York. This was
the first American steamboat of any size that I had seen; and
certainly to an English eye it was infinitely less like a steamboat
than a huge floating bath. I could hardly persuade myself, indeed,
but that the bathing establishment off Westminster Bridge, which I
left a baby, had suddenly grown to an enormous size; run away from
home; and set up in foreign parts as a steamer. Being in America,
too, which our vagabonds do so particularly favour, it seemed the
more probable.
The great difference in appearance between these packets and ours,
is, that there is so much of them out of the water: the main-deck
being enclosed on all sides, and filled with casks and goods, like
any second or third floor in a stack of warehouses; and the
promenade or hurricane-deck being a-top of that again. A part of
the machinery is always above this deck; where the connecting-rod,
in a strong and lofty frame, is seen working away like an iron top-
sawyer. There is seldom any mast or tackle: nothing aloft but two
tall black chimneys. The man at the helm is shut up in a little
house in the fore part of the boat (the wheel being connected with
the rudder by iron chains, working the whole length of the deck);
and the passengers, unless the weather be very fine indeed, usually
congregate below. Directly you have left the wharf, all the life,
and stir, and bustle of a packet cease. You wonder for a long time
how she goes on, for there seems to be nobody in charge of her; and
when another of these dull machines comes splashing by, you feel
quite indignant with it, as a sullen cumbrous, ungraceful,
unshiplike leviathan: quite forgetting that the vessel you are on
board of, is its very counterpart.
There is always a clerk's office on the lower deck, where you pay
your fare; a ladies' cabin; baggage and stowage rooms; engineer's
room; and in short a great variety of perplexities which render the
discovery of the gentlemen's cabin, a matter of some difficulty.
It often occupies the whole length of the boat (as it did in this
case), and has three or four tiers of berths on each side. When I
first descended into the cabin of the New York, it looked, in my
unaccustomed eyes, about as long as the Burlington Arcade.
The Sound which has to be crossed on this passage, is not always a
very safe or pleasant navigation, and has been the scene of some
unfortunate accidents. It was a wet morning, and very misty, and
we soon lost sight of land. The day was calm, however, and
brightened towards noon. After exhausting (with good help from a
friend) the larder, and the stock of bottled beer, I lay down to
sleep; being very much tired with the fatigues of yesterday. But I
woke from my nap in time to hurry up, and see Hell Gate, the Hog's
Back, the Frying Pan, and other notorious localities, attractive to
all readers of famous Diedrich Knickerbocker's History. We were
now in a narrow channel, with sloping banks on either side,
besprinkled with pleasant villas, and made refreshing to the sight
by turf and trees. Soon we shot in quick succession, past a light-
house; a madhouse (how the lunatics flung up their caps and roared
in sympathy with the headlong engine and the driving tide!); a
jail; and other buildings: and so emerged into a noble bay, whose
waters sparkled in the now cloudless sunshine like Nature's eyes
turned up to Heaven.
Then there lay stretched out before us, to the right, confused
heaps of buildings, with here and there a spire or steeple, looking
down upon the herd below; and here and there, again, a cloud of
lazy smoke; and in the foreground a forest of ships' masts, cheery
with flapping sails and waving flags. Crossing from among them to
the opposite shore, were steam ferry-boats laden with people,
coaches, horses, waggons, baskets, boxes: crossed and recrossed by
other ferry-boats: all travelling to and fro: and never idle.
Stately among these restless Insects, were two or three large
ships, moving with slow majestic pace, as creatures of a prouder
kind, disdainful of their puny journeys, and making for the broad
sea. Beyond, were shining heights, and islands in the glancing
river, and a distance scarcely less blue and bright than the sky it
seemed to meet. The city's hum and buzz, the clinking of capstans,
the ringing of bells, the barking of dogs, the clattering of
wheels, tingled in the listening ear. All of which life and stir,
coming across the stirring water, caught new life and animation
from its free companionship; and, sympathising with its buoyant
spirits, glistened as it seemed in sport upon its surface, and
hemmed the vessel round, and plashed the water high about her
sides, and, floating her gallantly into the dock, flew off again to
welcome other comers, and speed before them to the busy port.
CHAPTER VI - NEW YORK
THE beautiful metropolis of America is by no means so clean a city
as Boston, but many of its streets have the same characteristics;
except that the houses are not quite so fresh-coloured, the sign-
boards are not quite so gaudy, the gilded letters not quite so
golden, the bricks not quite so red, the stone not quite so white,
the blinds and area railings not quite so green, the knobs and
plates upon the street doors not quite so bright and twinkling.
There are many by-streets, almost as neutral in clean colours, and
positive in dirty ones, as by-streets in London; and there is one
quarter, commonly called the Five Points, which, in respect of
filth and wretchedness, may be safely backed against Seven Dials,
or any other part of famed St. Giles's.
The great promenade and thoroughfare, as most people know, is
Broadway; a wide and bustling street, which, from the Battery
Gardens to its opposite termination in a country road, may be four
miles long. Shall we sit down in an upper floor of the Carlton
House Hotel (situated in the best part of this main artery of New
York), and when we are tired of looking down upon the life below,
sally forth arm-in-arm, and mingle with the stream?
Warm weather! The sun strikes upon our heads at this open window,
as though its rays were concentrated through a burning-glass; but
the day is in its zenith, and the season an unusual one. Was there
ever such a sunny street as this Broadway! The pavement stones are
polished with the tread of feet until they shine again; the red
bricks of the houses might be yet in the dry, hot kilns; and the
roofs of those omnibuses look as though, if water were poured on
them, they would hiss and smoke, and smell like half-quenched
fires. No stint of omnibuses here! Half-a-dozen have gone by
within as many minutes. Plenty of hackney cabs and coaches too;
gigs, phaetons, large-wheeled tilburies, and private carriages -
rather of a clumsy make, and not very different from the public
vehicles, but built for the heavy roads beyond the city pavement.
Negro coachmen and white; in straw hats, black hats, white hats,
glazed caps, fur caps; in coats of drab, black, brown, green, blue,
nankeen, striped jean and linen; and there, in that one instance
(look while it passes, or it will be too late), in suits of livery.
Some southern republican that, who puts his blacks in uniform, and
swells with Sultan pomp and power. Yonder, where that phaeton with
the well-clipped pair of grays has stopped - standing at their
heads now - is a Yorkshire groom, who has not been very long in
these parts, and looks sorrowfully round for a companion pair of
top-boots, which he may traverse the city half a year without
meeting. Heaven save the ladies, how they dress! We have seen
more colours in these ten minutes, than we should have seen
elsewhere, in as many days. What various parasols! what rainbow
silks and satins! what pinking of thin stockings, and pinching of
thin shoes, and fluttering of ribbons and silk tassels, and display
of rich cloaks with gaudy hoods and linings! The young gentlemen
are fond, you see, of turning down their shirt-collars and
cultivating their whiskers, especially under the chin; but they
cannot approach the ladies in their dress or bearing, being, to say
the truth, humanity of quite another sort. Byrons of the desk and
counter, pass on, and let us see what kind of men those are behind
ye: those two labourers in holiday clothes, of whom one carries in
his hand a crumpled scrap of paper from which he tries to spell out
a hard name, while the other looks about for it on all the doors
and windows.
Irishmen both! You might know them, if they were masked, by their
long-tailed blue coats and bright buttons, and their drab trousers,
which they wear like men well used to working dresses, who are easy
in no others. It would be hard to keep your model republics going,
without the countrymen and countrywomen of those two labourers.
For who else would dig, and delve, and drudge, and do domestic
work, and make canals and roads, and execute great lines of
Internal Improvement! Irishmen both, and sorely puzzled too, to
find out what they seek. Let us go down, and help them, for the
love of home, and that spirit of liberty which admits of honest
service to honest men, and honest work for honest bread, no matter
what it be.
That's well! We have got at the right address at last, though it
is written in strange characters truly, and might have been
scrawled with the blunt handle of the spade the writer better knows
the use of, than a pen. Their way lies yonder, but what business
takes them there? They carry savings: to hoard up? No. They are
brothers, those men. One crossed the sea alone, and working very
hard for one half year, and living harder, saved funds enough to
bring the other out. That done, they worked together side by side,
contentedly sharing hard labour and hard living for another term,
and then their sisters came, and then another brother, and lastly,
their old mother. And what now? Why, the poor old crone is
restless in a strange land, and yearns to lay her bones, she says,
among her people in the old graveyard at home: and so they go to
pay her passage back: and God help her and them, and every simple
heart, and all who turn to the Jerusalem of their younger days, and
have an altar-fire upon the cold hearth of their fathers.
This narrow thoroughfare, baking and blistering in the sun, is Wall
Street: the Stock Exchange and Lombard Street of New York. Many a
rapid fortune has been made in this street, and many a no less
rapid ruin. Some of these very merchants whom you see hanging
about here now, have locked up money in their strong-boxes, like
the man in the Arabian Nights, and opening them again, have found
but withered leaves. Below, here by the water-side, where the
bowsprits of ships stretch across the footway, and almost thrust
themselves into the windows, lie the noble American vessels which
having made their Packet Service the finest in the world. They
have brought hither the foreigners who abound in all the streets:
not, perhaps, that there are more here, than in other commercial
cities; but elsewhere, they have particular haunts, and you must
find them out; here, they pervade the town.
We must cross Broadway again; gaining some refreshment from the
heat, in the sight of the great blocks of clean ice which are being
carried into shops and bar-rooms; and the pine-apples and water-
melons profusely displayed for sale. Fine streets of spacious
houses here, you see! - Wall Street has furnished and dismantled
many of them very often - and here a deep green leafy square. Be
sure that is a hospitable house with inmates to be affectionately
remembered always, where they have the open door and pretty show of
plants within, and where the child with laughing eyes is peeping
out of window at the little dog below. You wonder what may be the
use of this tall flagstaff in the by-street, with something like
Liberty's head-dress on its top: so do I. But there is a passion
for tall flagstaffs hereabout, and you may see its twin brother in
five minutes, if you have a mind.
Again across Broadway, and so - passing from the many-coloured
crowd and glittering shops - into another long main street, the
Bowery. A railroad yonder, see, where two stout horses trot along,
drawing a score or two of people and a great wooden ark, with ease.
The stores are poorer here; the passengers less gay. Clothes
ready-made, and meat ready-cooked, are to be bought in these parts;
and the lively whirl of carriages is exchanged for the deep rumble
of carts and waggons. These signs which are so plentiful, in shape
like river buoys, or small balloons, hoisted by cords to poles, and
dangling there, announce, as you may see by looking up, 'OYSTERS IN
EVERY STYLE.' They tempt the hungry most at night, for then dull
candles glimmering inside, illuminate these dainty words, and make
the mouths of idlers water, as they read and linger.
What is this dismal-fronted pile of bastard Egyptian, like an
enchanter's palace in a melodrama! - a famous prison, called The
Tombs. Shall we go in?
So. A long, narrow, lofty building, stove-heated as usual, with
four galleries, one above the other, going round it, and
communicating by stairs. Between the two sides of each gallery,
and in its centre, a bridge, for the greater convenience of
crossing. On each of these bridges sits a man: dozing or reading,
or talking to an idle companion. On each tier, are two opposite
rows of small iron doors. They look like furnace-doors, but are
cold and black, as though the fires within had all gone out. Some
two or three are open, and women, with drooping heads bent down,
are talking to the inmates. The whole is lighted by a skylight,
but it is fast closed; and from the roof there dangle, limp and
drooping, two useless windsails.
A man with keys appears, to show us round. A good-looking fellow,
and, in his way, civil and obliging.
'Are those black doors the cells?'
'Yes.'
'Are they all full?'
'Well, they're pretty nigh full, and that's a fact, and no two ways
about it.'
'Those at the bottom are unwholesome, surely?'
'Why, we DO only put coloured people in 'em. That's the truth.'
'When do the prisoners take exercise?'
'Well, they do without it pretty much.'
'Do they never walk in the yard?'
'Considerable seldom.'
'Sometimes, I suppose?'
'Well, it's rare they do. They keep pretty bright without it.'
'But suppose a man were here for a twelvemonth. I know this is
only a prison for criminals who are charged with grave offences,
while they are awaiting their trial, or under remand, but the law
here affords criminals many means of delay. What with motions for
new trials, and in arrest of judgment, and what not, a prisoner
might be here for twelve months, I take it, might he not?'
'Well, I guess he might.'
'Do you mean to say that in all that time he would never come out
at that little iron door, for exercise?'
'He might walk some, perhaps - not much.'
'Will you open one of the doors?'
'All, if you like.'
The fastenings jar and rattle, and one of the doors turns slowly on
its hinges. Let us look in. A small bare cell, into which the
light enters through a high chink in the wall. There is a rude
means of washing, a table, and a bedstead. Upon the latter, sits a
man of sixty; reading. He looks up for a moment; gives an
impatient dogged shake; and fixes his eyes upon his book again. As
we withdraw our heads, the door closes on him, and is fastened as
before. This man has murdered his wife, and will probably be
hanged.
'How long has he been here?'
'A month.'
'When will he be tried?'
'Next term.'
'When is that?'
'Next month.'
'In England, if a man be under sentence of death, even he has air
and exercise at certain periods of the day.'
'Possible?'
With what stupendous and untranslatable coolness he says this, and
how loungingly he leads on to the women's side: making, as he
goes, a kind of iron castanet of the key and the stair-rail!
Each cell door on this side has a square aperture in it. Some of
the women peep anxiously through it at the sound of footsteps;
others shrink away in shame. - For what offence can that lonely
child, of ten or twelve years old, be shut up here? Oh! that boy?
He is the son of the prisoner we saw just now; is a witness against
his father; and is detained here for safe keeping, until the trial;
that's all.
But it is a dreadful place for the child to pass the long days and
nights in. This is rather hard treatment for a young witness, is
it not? - What says our conductor?
'Well, it an't a very rowdy life, and THAT'S a fact!'
Again he clinks his metal castanet, and leads us leisurely away. I
have a question to ask him as we go.
'Pray, why do they call this place The Tombs?'
'Well, it's the cant name.'
'I know it is. Why?'
'Some suicides happened here, when it was first built. I expect it
come about from that.'
'I saw just now, that that man's clothes were scattered about the
floor of his cell. Don't you oblige the prisoners to be orderly,
and put such things away?'
'Where should they put 'em?'
'Not on the ground surely. What do you say to hanging them up?'
He stops and looks round to emphasise his answer:
'Why, I say that's just it. When they had hooks they WOULD hang
themselves, so they're taken out of every cell, and there's only
the marks left where they used to be!'
The prison-yard in which he pauses now, has been the scene of
terrible performances. Into this narrow, grave-like place, men are
brought out to die. The wretched creature stands beneath the
gibbet on the ground; the rope about his neck; and when the sign is
given, a weight at its other end comes running down, and swings him
up into the air - a corpse.
The law requires that there be present at this dismal spectacle,
the judge, the jury, and citizens to the amount of twenty-five.
From the community it is hidden. To the dissolute and bad, the
thing remains a frightful mystery. Between the criminal and them,
the prison-wall is interposed as a thick gloomy veil. It is the
curtain to his bed of death, his winding-sheet, and grave. From
him it shuts out life, and all the motives to unrepenting hardihood
in that last hour, which its mere sight and presence is often all-
sufficient to sustain. There are no bold eyes to make him bold; no
ruffians to uphold a ruffian's name before. All beyond the
pitiless stone wall, is unknown space.
Let us go forth again into the cheerful streets.
Once more in Broadway! Here are the same ladies in bright colours,
walking to and fro, in pairs and singly; yonder the very same light
blue parasol which passed and repassed the hotel-window twenty
times while we were sitting there. We are going to cross here.
Take care of the pigs. Two portly sows are trotting up behind this
carriage, and a select party of half-a-dozen gentlemen hogs have
just now turned the corner.
Here is a solitary swine lounging homeward by himself. He has only
one ear; having parted with the other to vagrant-dogs in the course
of his city rambles. But he gets on very well without it; and
leads a roving, gentlemanly, vagabond kind of life, somewhat
answering to that of our club-men at home. He leaves his lodgings
every morning at a certain hour, throws himself upon the town, gets
through his day in some manner quite satisfactory to himself, and
regularly appears at the door of his own house again at night, like
the mysterious master of Gil Blas. He is a free-and-easy,
careless, indifferent kind of pig, having a very large acquaintance
among other pigs of the same character, whom he rather knows by
sight than conversation, as he seldom troubles himself to stop and
exchange civilities, but goes grunting down the kennel, turning up
the news and small-talk of the city in the shape of cabbage-stalks
and offal, and bearing no tails but his own: which is a very short
one, for his old enemies, the dogs, have been at that too, and have
left him hardly enough to swear by. He is in every respect a
republican pig, going wherever he pleases, and mingling with the
best society, on an equal, if not superior footing, for every one
makes way when he appears, and the haughtiest give him the wall, if
he prefer it. He is a great philosopher, and seldom moved, unless
by the dogs before mentioned. Sometimes, indeed, you may see his
small eye twinkling on a slaughtered friend, whose carcase
garnishes a butcher's door-post, but he grunts out 'Such is life:
all flesh is pork!' buries his nose in the mire again, and waddles
down the gutter: comforting himself with the reflection that there
is one snout the less to anticipate stray cabbage-stalks, at any
rate.
They are the city scavengers, these pigs. Ugly brutes they are;
having, for the most part, scanty brown backs, like the lids of old
horsehair trunks: spotted with unwholesome black blotches. They
have long, gaunt legs, too, and such peaked snouts, that if one of
them could be persuaded to sit for his profile, nobody would
recognise it for a pig's likeness. They are never attended upon,
or fed, or driven, or caught, but are thrown upon their own
resources in early life, and become preternaturally knowing in
consequence. Every pig knows where he lives, much better than
anybody could tell him. At this hour, just as evening is closing
in, you will see them roaming towards bed by scores, eating their
way to the last. Occasionally, some youth among them who has over-
eaten himself, or has been worried by dogs, trots shrinkingly
homeward, like a prodigal son: but this is a rare case: perfect
self-possession and self-reliance, and immovable composure, being
their foremost attributes.
The streets and shops are lighted now; and as the eye travels down
the long thoroughfare, dotted with bright jets of gas, it is
reminded of Oxford Street, or Piccadilly. Here and there a flight
of broad stone cellar-steps appears, and a painted lamp directs you
to the Bowling Saloon, or Ten-Pin alley; Ten-Pins being a game of
mingled chance and skill, invented when the legislature passed an
act forbidding Nine-Pins. At other downward flights of steps, are
other lamps, marking the whereabouts of oyster-cellars - pleasant
retreats, say I: not only by reason of their wonderful cookery of
oysters, pretty nigh as large as cheese-plates (or for thy dear
sake, heartiest of Greek Professors!), but because of all kinds of
caters of fish, or flesh, or fowl, in these latitudes, the
swallowers of oysters alone are not gregarious; but subduing
themselves, as it were, to the nature of what they work in, and
copying the coyness of the thing they eat, do sit apart in
curtained boxes, and consort by twos, not by two hundreds.
But how quiet the streets are! Are there no itinerant bands; no
wind or stringed instruments? No, not one. By day, are there no
Punches, Fantoccini, Dancing-dogs, Jugglers, Conjurers,
Orchestrinas, or even Barrel-organs? No, not one. Yes, I remember
one. One barrel-organ and a dancing-monkey - sportive by nature,
but fast fading into a dull, lumpish monkey, of the Utilitarian
school. Beyond that, nothing lively; no, not so much as a white
mouse in a twirling cage.
Are there no amusements? Yes. There is a lecture-room across the
way, from which that glare of light proceeds, and there may be
evening service for the ladies thrice a week, or oftener. For the
young gentlemen, there is the counting-house, the store, the bar-
room: the latter, as you may see through these windows, pretty
full. Hark! to the clinking sound of hammers breaking lumps of
ice, and to the cool gurgling of the pounded bits, as, in the
process of mixing, they are poured from glass to glass! No
amusements? What are these suckers of cigars and swallowers of
strong drinks, whose hats and legs we see in every possible variety
of twist, doing, but amusing themselves? What are the fifty
newspapers, which those precocious urchins are bawling down the
street, and which are kept filed within, what are they but
amusements? Not vapid, waterish amusements, but good strong stuff;
dealing in round abuse and blackguard names; pulling off the roofs
of private houses, as the Halting Devil did in Spain; pimping and
pandering for all degrees of vicious taste, and gorging with coined
lies the most voracious maw; imputing to every man in public life
the coarsest and the vilest motives; scaring away from the stabbed
and prostrate body-politic, every Samaritan of clear conscience and
good deeds; and setting on, with yell and whistle and the clapping
of foul hands, the vilest vermin and worst birds of prey. - No
amusements!
Let us go on again; and passing this wilderness of an hotel with
stores about its base, like some Continental theatre, or the London
Opera House shorn of its colonnade, plunge into the Five Points.
But it is needful, first, that we take as our escort these two
heads of the police, whom you would know for sharp and well-trained
officers if you met them in the Great Desert. So true it is, that
certain pursuits, wherever carried on, will stamp men with the same
character. These two might have been begotten, born, and bred, in
Bow Street.
We have seen no beggars in the streets by night or day; but of
other kinds of strollers, plenty. Poverty, wretchedness, and vice,
are rife enough where we are going now.
This is the place: these narrow ways, diverging to the right and
left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as
are led here, bear the same fruits here as elsewhere. The coarse
and bloated faces at the doors, have counterparts at home, and all
the wide world over. Debauchery has made the very houses
prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and
how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes
that have been hurt in drunken frays. Many of those pigs live
here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright in lieu
of going on all-fours? and why they talk instead of grunting?
So far, nearly every house is a low tavern; and on the bar-room
walls, are coloured prints of Washington, and Queen Victoria of
England, and the American Eagle. Among the pigeon-holes that hold
the bottles, are pieces of plate-glass and coloured paper, for
there is, in some sort, a taste for decoration, even here. And as
seamen frequent these haunts, there are maritime pictures by the
dozen: of partings between sailors and their lady-loves, portraits
of William, of the ballad, and his Black-Eyed Susan; of Will Watch,
the Bold Smuggler; of Paul Jones the Pirate, and the like: on
which the painted eyes of Queen Victoria, and of Washington to
boot, rest in as strange companionship, as on most of the scenes
that are enacted in their wondering presence.
What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts us? A
kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only
by crazy wooden stairs without. What lies beyond this tottering
flight of steps, that creak beneath our tread? - a miserable room,
lighted by one dim candle, and destitute of all comfort, save that
which may be hidden in a wretched bed. Beside it, sits a man: his
elbows on his knees: his forehead hidden in his hands. 'What ails
that man?' asks the foremost officer. 'Fever,' he sullenly
replies, without looking up. Conceive the fancies of a feverish
brain, in such a place as this!
Ascend these pitch-dark stairs, heedful of a false footing on the
trembling boards, and grope your way with me into this wolfish den,
where neither ray of light nor breath of air, appears to come. A
negro lad, startled from his sleep by the officer's voice - he
knows it well - but comforted by his assurance that he has not come
on business, officiously bestirs himself to light a candle. The
match flickers for a moment, and shows great mounds of dusty rags
upon the ground; then dies away and leaves a denser darkness than
before, if there can be degrees in such extremes. He stumbles down
the stairs and presently comes back, shading a flaring taper with
his hand. Then the mounds of rags are seen to be astir, and rise
slowly up, and the floor is covered with heaps of negro women,
waking from their sleep: their white teeth chattering, and their
bright eyes glistening and winking on all sides with surprise and
fear, like the countless repetition of one astonished African face
in some strange mirror.
Mount up these other stairs with no less caution (there are traps
and pitfalls here, for those who are not so well escorted as
ourselves) into the housetop; where the bare beams and rafters meet
overhead, and calm night looks down through the crevices in the
roof. Open the door of one of these cramped hutches full of
sleeping negroes. Pah! They have a charcoal fire within; there is
a smell of singeing clothes, or flesh, so close they gather round
the brazier; and vapours issue forth that blind and suffocate.
From every corner, as you glance about you in these dark retreats,
some figure crawls half-awakened, as if the judgment-hour were near
at hand, and every obscene grave were giving up its dead. Where
dogs would howl to lie, women, and men, and boys slink off to
sleep, forcing the dislodged rats to move away in quest of better
lodgings.
Here too are lanes and alleys, paved with mud knee-deep,
underground chambers, where they dance and game; the walls bedecked
with rough designs of ships, and forts, and flags, and American
eagles out of number: ruined houses, open to the street, whence,
through wide gaps in the walls, other ruins loom upon the eye, as
though the world of vice and misery had nothing else to show:
hideous tenements which take their name from robbery and murder:
all that is loathsome, drooping, and decayed is here.
Our leader has his hand upon the latch of 'Almack's,' and calls to
us from the bottom of the steps; for the assembly-room of the Five
Point fashionables is approached by a descent. Shall we go in? It
is but a moment.
Heyday! the landlady of Almack's thrives! A buxom fat mulatto
woman, with sparkling eyes, whose head is daintily ornamented with
a handkerchief of many colours. Nor is the landlord much behind
her in his finery, being attired in a smart blue jacket, like a
ship's steward, with a thick gold ring upon his little finger, and
round his neck a gleaming golden watch-guard. How glad he is to
see us! What will we please to call for? A dance? It shall be
done directly, sir: 'a regular break-down.'
The corpulent black fiddler, and his friend who plays the
tambourine, stamp upon the boarding of the small raised orchestra
in which they sit, and play a lively measure. Five or six couple
come upon the floor, marshalled by a lively young negro, who is the
wit of the assembly, and the greatest dancer known. He never
leaves off making queer faces, and is the delight of all the rest,
who grin from ear to ear incessantly. Among the dancers are two
young mulatto girls, with large, black, drooping eyes, and head-
gear after the fashion of the hostess, who are as shy, or feign to
be, as though they never danced before, and so look down before the
visitors, that their partners can see nothing but the long fringed
lashes.
But the dance commences. Every gentleman sets as long as he likes
to the opposite lady, and the opposite lady to him, and all are so
long about it that the sport begins to languish, when suddenly the
lively hero dashes in to the rescue. Instantly the fiddler grins,
and goes at it tooth and nail; there is new energy in the
tambourine; new laughter in the dancers; new smiles in the
landlady; new confidence in the landlord; new brightness in the
very candles.
Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-cut; snapping his
fingers, rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the
backs of his legs in front, spinning about on his toes and heels
like nothing but the man's fingers on the tambourine; dancing with
two left legs, two right legs, two wooden legs, two wire legs, two
spring legs - all sorts of legs and no legs - what is this to him?
And in what walk of life, or dance of life, does man ever get such
stimulating applause as thunders about him, when, having danced his
partner off her feet, and himself too, he finishes by leaping
gloriously on the bar-counter, and calling for something to drink,
with the chuckle of a million of counterfeit Jim Crows, in one
inimitable sound!
The air, even in these distempered parts, is fresh after the
stifling atmosphere of the houses; and now, as we emerge into a
broader street, it blows upon us with a purer breath, and the stars
look bright again. Here are The Tombs once more. The city watch-
house is a part of the building. It follows naturally on the
sights we have just left. Let us see that, and then to bed.
What! do you thrust your common offenders against the police
discipline of the town, into such holes as these? Do men and
women, against whom no crime is proved, lie here all night in
perfect darkness, surrounded by the noisome vapours which encircle
that flagging lamp you light us with, and breathing this filthy and
offensive stench! Why, such indecent and disgusting dungeons as
these cells, would bring disgrace upon the most despotic empire in
the world! Look at them, man - you, who see them every night, and
keep the keys. Do you see what they are? Do you know how drains
are made below the streets, and wherein these human sewers differ,
except in being always stagnant?
Well, he don't know. He has had five-and-twenty young women locked
up in this very cell at one time, and you'd hardly realise what
handsome faces there were among 'em.
In God's name! shut the door upon the wretched creature who is in
it now, and put its screen before a place, quite unsurpassed in all
the vice, neglect, and devilry, of the worst old town in Europe.
Are people really left all night, untried, in those black sties? -
Every night. The watch is set at seven in the evening. The
magistrate opens his court at five in the morning. That is the
earliest hour at which the first prisoner can be released; and if
an officer appear against him, he is not taken out till nine
o'clock or ten. - But if any one among them die in the interval, as
one man did, not long ago? Then he is half-eaten by the rats in an
hour's time; as that man was; and there an end.
What is this intolerable tolling of great bells, and crashing of
wheels, and shouting in the distance? A fire. And what that deep
red light in the opposite direction? Another fire. And what these
charred and blackened walls we stand before? A dwelling where a
fire has been. It was more than hinted, in an official report, not
long ago, that some of these conflagrations were not wholly
accidental, and that speculation and enterprise found a field of
exertion, even in flames: but be this as it may, there was a fire
last night, there are two to-night, and you may lay an even wager
there will be at least one, to-morrow. So, carrying that with us
for our comfort, let us say, Good night, and climb up-stairs to
bed.
* * * * * *
One day, during my stay in New York, I paid a visit to the
different public institutions on Long Island, or Rhode Island: I
forget which. One of them is a Lunatic Asylum. The building is
handsome; and is remarkable for a spacious and elegant staircase.
The whole structure is not yet finished, but it is already one of
considerable size and extent, and is capable of accommodating a
very large number of patients.
I cannot say that I derived much comfort from the inspection of
this charity. The different wards might have been cleaner and
better ordered; I saw nothing of that salutary system which had
impressed me so favourably elsewhere; and everything had a
lounging, listless, madhouse air, which was very painful. The
moping idiot, cowering down with long dishevelled hair; the
gibbering maniac, with his hideous laugh and pointed finger; the
vacant eye, the fierce wild face, the gloomy picking of the hands
and lips, and munching of the nails: there they were all, without
disguise, in naked ugliness and horror. In the dining-room, a
bare, dull, dreary place, with nothing for the eye to rest on but
the empty walls, a woman was locked up alone. She was bent, they
told me, on committing suicide. If anything could have
strengthened her in her resolution, it would certainly have been
the insupportable monotony of such an existence.
The terrible crowd with which these halls and galleries were
filled, so shocked me, that I abridged my stay within the shortest
limits, and declined to see that portion of the building in which
the refractory and violent were under closer restraint. I have no
doubt that the gentleman who presided over this establishment at
the time I write of, was competent to manage it, and had done all
in his power to promote its usefulness: but will it be believed
that the miserable strife of Party feeling is carried even into
this sad refuge of afflicted and degraded humanity? Will it be
believed that the eyes which are to watch over and control the
wanderings of minds on which the most dreadful visitation to which
our nature is exposed has fallen, must wear the glasses of some
wretched side in Politics? Will it be believed that the governor
of such a house as this, is appointed, and deposed, and changed
perpetually, as Parties fluctuate and vary, and as their despicable
weathercocks are blown this way or that? A hundred times in every
week, some new most paltry exhibition of that narrow-minded and
injurious Party Spirit, which is the Simoom of America, sickening
and blighting everything of wholesome life within its reach, was
forced upon my notice; but I never turned my back upon it with
feelings of such deep disgust and measureless contempt, as when I
crossed the threshold of this madhouse.
At a short distance from this building is another called the Alms
House, that is to say, the workhouse of New York. This is a large
Institution also: lodging, I believe, when I was there, nearly a
thousand poor. It was badly ventilated, and badly lighted; was not
too clean; - and impressed me, on the whole, very uncomfortably.
But it must be remembered that New York, as a great emporium of
commerce, and as a place of general resort, not only from all parts
of the States, but from most parts of the world, has always a large
pauper population to provide for; and labours, therefore, under
peculiar difficulties in this respect. Nor must it be forgotten
that New York is a large town, and that in all large towns a vast
amount of good and evil is intermixed and jumbled up together.
In the same neighbourhood is the Farm, where young orphans are
nursed and bred. I did not see it, but I believe it is well
conducted; and I can the more easily credit it, from knowing how
mindful they usually are, in America, of that beautiful passage in
the Litany which remembers all sick persons and young children.
I was taken to these Institutions by water, in a boat belonging to
the Island jail, and rowed by a crew of prisoners, who were dressed
in a striped uniform of black and buff, in which they looked like
faded tigers. They took me, by the same conveyance, to the jail
itself.
It is an old prison, and quite a pioneer establishment, on the plan
I have already described. I was glad to hear this, for it is
unquestionably a very indifferent one. The most is made, however,
of the means it possesses, and it is as well regulated as such a
place can be.
The women work in covered sheds, erected for that purpose. If I
remember right, there are no shops for the men, but be that as it
may, the greater part of them labour in certain stone-quarries near
at hand. The day being very wet indeed, this labour was suspended,
and the prisoners were in their cells. Imagine these cells, some
two or three hundred in number, and in every one a man locked up;
this one at his door for air, with his hands thrust through the
grate; this one in bed (in the middle of the day, remember); and
this one flung down in a heap upon the ground, with his head
against the bars, like a wild beast. Make the rain pour down,
outside, in torrents. Put the everlasting stove in the midst; hot,
and suffocating, and vaporous, as a witch's cauldron. Add a
collection of gentle odours, such as would arise from a thousand
mildewed umbrellas, wet through, and a thousand buck-baskets, full
of half-washed linen - and there is the prison, as it was that day.
The prison for the State at Sing Sing is, on the other hand, a
model jail. That, and Auburn, are, I believe, the largest and best
examples of the silent system.
In another part of the city, is the Refuge for the Destitute: an
Institution whose object is to reclaim youthful offenders, male and
female, black and white, without distinction; to teach them useful
trades, apprentice them to respectable masters, and make them
worthy members of society. Its design, it will be seen, is similar
to that at Boston; and it is a no less meritorious and admirable
establishment. A suspicion crossed my mind during my inspection of
this noble charity, whether the superintendent had quite sufficient
knowledge of the world and worldly characters; and whether he did
not commit a great mistake in treating some young girls, who were
to all intents and purposes, by their years and their past lives,
women, as though they were little children; which certainly had a
ludicrous effect in my eyes, and, or I am much mistaken, in theirs
also. As the Institution, however, is always under a vigilant
examination of a body of gentlemen of great intelligence and
experience, it cannot fail to be well conducted; and whether I am
right or wrong in this slight particular, is unimportant to its
deserts and character, which it would be difficult to estimate too
highly.
In addition to these establishments, there are in New York,
excellent hospitals and schools, literary institutions and
libraries; an admirable fire department (as indeed it should be,
having constant practice), and charities of every sort and kind.
In the suburbs there is a spacious cemetery: unfinished yet, but
every day improving. The saddest tomb I saw there was 'The
Strangers' Grave. Dedicated to the different hotels in this city.'
There are three principal theatres. Two of them, the Park and the
Bowery, are large, elegant, and handsome buildings, and are, I
grieve to write it, generally deserted. The third, the Olympic, is
a tiny show-box for vaudevilles and burlesques. It is singularly
well conducted by Mr. Mitchell, a comic actor of great quiet humour
and originality, who is well remembered and esteemed by London
playgoers. I am happy to report of this deserving gentleman, that
his benches are usually well filled, and that his theatre rings
with merriment every night. I had almost forgotten a small summer
theatre, called Niblo's, with gardens and open air amusements
attached; but I believe it is not exempt from the general
depression under which Theatrical Property, or what is humorously
called by that name, unfortunately labours.
The country round New York is surpassingly and exquisitely
picturesque. The climate, as I have already intimated, is somewhat
of the warmest. What it would be, without the sea breezes which
come from its beautiful Bay in the evening time, I will not throw
myself or my readers into a fever by inquiring.
The tone of the best society in this city, is like that of Boston;
here and there, it may be, with a greater infusion of the
mercantile spirit, but generally polished and refined, and always
most hospitable. The houses and tables are elegant; the hours
later and more rakish; and there is, perhaps, a greater spirit of
contention in reference to appearances, and the display of wealth
and costly living. The ladies are singularly beautiful.
Before I left New York I made arrangements for securing a passage
home in the George Washington packet ship, which was advertised to
sail in June: that being the month in which I had determined, if
prevented by no accident in the course of my ramblings, to leave
America.
I never thought that going back to England, returning to all who
are dear to me, and to pursuits that have insensibly grown to be a
part of my nature, I could have felt so much sorrow as I endured,
when I parted at last, on board this ship, with the friends who had
accompanied me from this city. I never thought the name of any
place, so far away and so lately known, could ever associate itself
in my mind with the crowd of affectionate remembrances that now
cluster about it. There are those in this city who would brighten,
to me, the darkest winter-day that ever glimmered and went out in
Lapland; and before whose presence even Home grew dim, when they
and I exchanged that painful word which mingles with our every
thought and deed; which haunts our cradle-heads in infancy, and
closes up the vista of our lives in age.
CHAPTER VII - PHILADELPHIA, AND ITS SOLITARY PRISON
THE journey from New York to Philadelphia, is made by railroad, and
two ferries; and usually occupies between five and six hours. It
was a fine evening when we were passengers in the train: and
watching the bright sunset from a little window near the door by
which we sat, my attention was attracted to a remarkable appearance
issuing from the windows of the gentleman's car immediately in
front of us, which I supposed for some time was occasioned by a
number of industrious persons inside, ripping open feather-beds,
and giving the feathers to the wind. At length it occurred to me
that they were only spitting, which was indeed the case; though how
any number of passengers which it was possible for that car to
contain, could have maintained such a playful and incessant shower
of expectoration, I am still at a loss to understand:
notwithstanding the experience in all salivatory phenomena which I
afterwards acquired.
I made acquaintance, on this journey, with a mild and modest young
quaker, who opened the discourse by informing me, in a grave
whisper, that his grandfather was the inventor of cold-drawn castor
oil. I mention the circumstance here, thinking it probable that
this is the first occasion on which the valuable medicine in
question was ever used as a conversational aperient.
We reached the city, late that night. Looking out of my chamber-
window, before going to bed, I saw, on the opposite side of the
way, a handsome building of white marble, which had a mournful
ghost-like aspect, dreary to behold. I attributed this to the
sombre influence of the night, and on rising in the morning looked
out again, expecting to see its steps and portico thronged with
groups of people passing in and out. The door was still tight
shut, however; the same cold cheerless air prevailed: and the
building looked as if the marble statue of Don Guzman could alone
have any business to transact within its gloomy walls. I hastened
to inquire its name and purpose, and then my surprise vanished. It
was the Tomb of many fortunes; the Great Catacomb of investment;
the memorable United States Bank.
The stoppage of this bank, with all its ruinous consequences, had
cast (as I was told on every side) a gloom on Philadelphia, under
the depressing effect of which it yet laboured. It certainly did
seem rather dull and out of spirits.
It is a handsome city, but distractingly regular. After walking
about it for an hour or two, I felt that I would have given the
world for a crooked street. The collar of my coat appeared to
stiffen, and the brim of my bat to expand, beneath its quakery
influence. My hair shrunk into a sleek short crop, my hands folded
themselves upon my breast of their own calm accord, and thoughts of
taking lodgings in Mark Lane over against the Market Place, and of
making a large fortune by speculations in corn, came over me
involuntarily.
Philadelphia is most bountifully provided with fresh water, which
is showered and jerked about, and turned on, and poured off,
everywhere. The Waterworks, which are on a height near the city,
are no less ornamental than useful, being tastefully laid out as a
public garden, and kept in the best and neatest order. The river
is dammed at this point, and forced by its own power into certain
high tanks or reservoirs, whence the whole city, to the top stories
of the houses, is supplied at a very trifling expense.
There are various public institutions. Among them a most excellent
Hospital - a quaker establishment, but not sectarian in the great
benefits it confers; a quiet, quaint old Library, named after
Franklin; a handsome Exchange and Post Office; and so forth. In
connection with the quaker Hospital, there is a picture by West,
which is exhibited for the benefit of the funds of the institution.
The subject is, our Saviour healing the sick, and it is, perhaps,
as favourable a specimen of the master as can be seen anywhere.
Whether this be high or low praise, depends upon the reader's
taste.
In the same room, there is a very characteristic and life-like
portrait by Mr. Sully, a distinguished American artist.
My stay in Philadelphia was very short, but what I saw of its
society, I greatly liked. Treating of its general characteristics,
I should be disposed to say that it is more provincial than Boston
or New York, and that there is afloat in the fair city, an
assumption of taste and criticism, savouring rather of those
genteel discussions upon the same themes, in connection with
Shakspeare and the Musical Glasses, of which we read in the Vicar
of Wakefield. Near the city, is a most splendid unfinished marble
structure for the Girard College, founded by a deceased gentleman
of that name and of enormous wealth, which, if completed according
to the original design, will be perhaps the richest edifice of
modern times. But the bequest is involved in legal disputes, and
pending them the work has stopped; so that like many other great
undertakings in America, even this is rather going to be done one
of these days, than doing now.
In the outskirts, stands a great prison, called the Eastern
Penitentiary: conducted on a plan peculiar to the state of
Pennsylvania. The system here, is rigid, strict, and hopeless
solitary confinement. I believe it, in its effects, to be cruel
and wrong.
In its intention, I am well convinced that it is kind, humane, and
meant for reformation; but I am persuaded that those who devised
this system of Prison Discipline, and those benevolent gentlemen
who carry it into execution, do not know what it is that they are
doing. I believe that very few men are capable of estimating the
immense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment,
prolonged for years, inflicts upon the sufferers; and in guessing
at it myself, and in reasoning from what I have seen written upon
their faces, and what to my certain knowledge they feel within, I
am only the more convinced that there is a depth of terrible
endurance in it which none but the sufferers themselves can fathom,
and which no man has a right to inflict upon his fellow-creature.
I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the
brain, to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body: and
because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye
and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh; because its wounds are
not upon the surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can
hear; therefore I the more denounce it, as a secret punishment
which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay. I hesitated
once, debating with myself, whether, if I had the power of saying
'Yes' or 'No,' I would allow it to be tried in certain cases, where
the terms of imprisonment were short; but now, I solemnly declare,
that with no rewards or honours could I walk a happy man beneath
the open sky by day, or lie me down upon my bed at night, with the
consciousness that one human creature, for any length of time, no
matter what, lay suffering this unknown punishment in his silent
cell, and I the cause, or I consenting to it in the least degree.
I was accompanied to this prison by two gentlemen officially
connected with its management, and passed the day in going from
cell to cell, and talking with the inmates. Every facility was
afforded me, that the utmost courtesy could suggest. Nothing was
concealed or hidden from my view, and every piece of information
that I sought, was openly and frankly given. The perfect order of
the building cannot be praised too highly, and of the excellent
motives of all who are immediately concerned in the administration
of the system, there can be no kind of question.
Between the body of the prison and the outer wall, there is a
spacious garden. Entering it, by a wicket in the massive gate, we
pursued the path before us to its other termination, and passed
into a large chamber, from which seven long passages radiate. On
either side of each, is a long, long row of low cell doors, with a
certain number over every one. Above, a gallery of cells like
those below, except that they have no narrow yard attached (as
those in the ground tier have), and are somewhat smaller. The
possession of two of these, is supposed to compensate for the
absence of so much air and exercise as can be had in the dull strip
attached to each of the others, in an hour's time every day; and
therefore every prisoner in this upper story has two cells,
adjoining and communicating with, each other.
Standing at the central point, and looking down these dreary
passages, the dull repose and quiet that prevails, is awful.
Occasionally, there is a drowsy sound from some lone weaver's
shuttle, or shoemaker's last, but it is stifled by the thick walls
and heavy dungeon-door, and only serves to make the general
stillness more profound. Over the head and face of every prisoner
who comes into this melancholy house, a black hood is drawn; and in
this dark shroud, an emblem of the curtain dropped between him and
the living world, he is led to the cell from which he never again
comes forth, until his whole term of imprisonment has expired. He
never hears of wife and children; home or friends; the life or
death of any single creature. He sees the prison-officers, but
with that exception he never looks upon a human countenance, or
hears a human voice. He is a man buried alive; to be dug out in
the slow round of years; and in the mean time dead to everything
but torturing anxieties and horrible despair.
His name, and crime, and term of suffering, are unknown, even to
the officer who delivers him his daily food. There is a number
over his cell-door, and in a book of which the governor of the
prison has one copy, and the moral instructor another: this is the
index of his history. Beyond these pages the prison has no record
of his existence: and though he live to be in the same cell ten
weary years, he has no means of knowing, down to the very last
hour, in which part of the building it is situated; what kind of
men there are about him; whether in the long winter nights there
are living people near, or he is in some lonely corner of the great
jail, with walls, and passages, and iron doors between him and the
nearest sharer in its solitary horrors.
Every cell has double doors: the outer one of sturdy oak, the
other of grated iron, wherein there is a trap through which his
food is handed. He has a Bible, and a slate and pencil, and, under
certain restrictions, has sometimes other books, provided for the
purpose, and pen and ink and paper. His razor, plate, and can, and
basin, hang upon the wall, or shine upon the little shelf. Fresh
water is laid on in every cell, and he can draw it at his pleasure.
During the day, his bedstead turns up against the wall, and leaves
more space for him to work in. His loom, or bench, or wheel, is
there; and there he labours, sleeps and wakes, and counts the
seasons as they change, and grows old.
The first man I saw, was seated at his loom, at work. He had been
there six years, and was to remain, I think, three more. He had
been convicted as a receiver of stolen goods, but even after his
long imprisonment, denied his guilt, and said he had been hardly
dealt by. It was his second offence.
He stopped his work when we went in, took off his spectacles, and
answered freely to everything that was said to him, but always with
a strange kind of pause first, and in a low, thoughtful voice. He
wore a paper hat of his own making, and was pleased to have it
noticed and commanded. He had very ingeniously manufactured a sort
of Dutch clock from some disregarded odds and ends; and his
vinegar-bottle served for the pendulum. Seeing me interested in
this contrivance, he looked up at it with a great deal of pride,
and said that he had been thinking of improving it, and that he
hoped the hammer and a little piece of broken glass beside it
'would play music before long.' He had extracted some colours from
the yarn with which he worked, and painted a few poor figures on
the wall. One, of a female, over the door, he called 'The Lady of
the Lake.'
He smiled as I looked at these contrivances to while away the time;
but when I looked from them to him, I saw that his lip trembled,
and could have counted the beating of his heart. I forget how it
came about, but some allusion was made to his having a wife. He
shook his head at the word, turned aside, and covered his face with
his hands.
'But you are resigned now!' said one of the gentlemen after a short
pause, during which he had resumed his former manner. He answered
with a sigh that seemed quite reckless in its hopelessness, 'Oh
yes, oh yes! I am resigned to it.' 'And are a better man, you
think?' 'Well, I hope so: I'm sure I hope I may be.' 'And time
goes pretty quickly?' 'Time is very long gentlemen, within these
four walls!'
He gazed about him - Heaven only knows how wearily! - as he said
these words; and in the act of doing so, fell into a strange stare
as if he had forgotten something. A moment afterwards he sighed
heavily, put on his spectacles, and went about his work again.
In another cell, there was a German, sentenced to five years'
imprisonment for larceny, two of which had just expired. With
colours procured in the same manner, he had painted every inch of
the walls and ceiling quite beautifully. He had laid out the few
feet of ground, behind, with exquisite neatness, and had made a
little bed in the centre, that looked, by-the-bye, like a grave.
The taste and ingenuity he had displayed in everything were most
extraordinary; and yet a more dejected, heart-broken, wretched
creature, it would be difficult to imagine. I never saw such a
picture of forlorn affliction and distress of mind. My heart bled
for him; and when the tears ran down his cheeks, and he took one of
the visitors aside, to ask, with his trembling hands nervously
clutching at his coat to detain him, whether there was no hope of
his dismal sentence being commuted, the spectacle was really too
painful to witness. I never saw or heard of any kind of misery
that impressed me more than the wretchedness of this man.
In a third cell, was a tall, strong black, a burglar, working at
his proper trade of making screws and the like. His time was
nearly out. He was not only a very dexterous thief, but was
notorious for his boldness and hardihood, and for the number of his
previous convictions. He entertained us with a long account of his
achievements, which he narrated with such infinite relish, that he
actually seemed to lick his lips as he told us racy anecdotes of
stolen plate, and of old ladies whom he had watched as they sat at
windows in silver spectacles (he had plainly had an eye to their
metal even from the other side of the street) and had afterwards
robbed. This fellow, upon the slightest encouragement, would have
mingled with his professional recollections the most detestable
cant; but I am very much mistaken if he could have surpassed the
unmitigated hypocrisy with which he declared that he blessed the
day on which he came into that prison, and that he never would
commit another robbery as long as he lived.
There was one man who was allowed, as an indulgence, to keep
rabbits. His room having rather a close smell in consequence, they
called to him at the door to come out into the passage. He
complied of course, and stood shading his haggard face in the
unwonted sunlight of the great window, looking as wan and unearthly
as if he had been summoned from the grave. He had a white rabbit
in his breast; and when the little creature, getting down upon the
ground, stole back into the cell, and he, being dismissed, crept
timidly after it, I thought it would have been very hard to say in
what respect the man was the nobler animal of the two.
There was an English thief, who had been there but a few days out
of seven years: a villainous, low-browed, thin-lipped fellow, with
a white face; who had as yet no relish for visitors, and who, but
for the additional penalty, would have gladly stabbed me with his
shoemaker's knife. There was another German who had entered the
jail but yesterday, and who started from his bed when we looked in,
and pleaded, in his broken English, very hard for work. There was
a poet, who after doing two days' work in every four-and-twenty
hours, one for himself and one for the prison, wrote verses about
ships (he was by trade a mariner), and 'the maddening wine-cup,'
and his friends at home. There were very many of them. Some
reddened at the sight of visitors, and some turned very pale. Some
two or three had prisoner nurses with them, for they were very
sick; and one, a fat old negro whose leg had been taken off within
the jail, had for his attendant a classical scholar and an
accomplished surgeon, himself a prisoner likewise. Sitting upon
the stairs, engaged in some slight work, was a pretty coloured boy.
'Is there no refuge for young criminals in Philadelphia, then?'
said I. 'Yes, but only for white children.' Noble aristocracy in
crime
There was a sailor who had been there upwards of eleven years, and
who in a few months' time would be free. Eleven years of solitary
confinement!
'I am very glad to hear your time is nearly out.' What does he
say? Nothing. Why does he stare at his hands, and pick the flesh
upon his fingers, and raise his eyes for an instant, every now and
then, to those bare walls which have seen his head turn grey? It
is a way he has sometimes.
Does he never look men in the face, and does he always pluck at
those hands of his, as though he were bent on parting skin and
bone? It is his humour: nothing more.
It is his humour too, to say that he does not look forward to going
out; that he is not glad the time is drawing near; that he did look
forward to it once, but that was very long ago; that he has lost
all care for everything. It is his humour to be a helpless,
crushed, and broken man. And, Heaven be his witness that he has
his humour thoroughly gratified!
There were three young women in adjoining cells, all convicted at
the same time of a conspiracy to rob their prosecutor. In the
silence and solitude of their lives they had grown to be quite
beautiful. Their looks were very sad, and might have moved the
sternest visitor to tears, but not to that kind of sorrow which the
contemplation of the men awakens. One was a young girl; not
twenty, as I recollect; whose snow-white room was hung with the
work of some former prisoner, and upon whose downcast face the sun
in all its splendour shone down through the high chink in the wall,
where one narrow strip of bright blue sky was visible. She was
very penitent and quiet; had come to be resigned, she said (and I
believe her); and had a mind at peace. 'In a word, you are happy
here?' said one of my companions. She struggled - she did struggle
very hard - to answer, Yes; but raising her eyes, and meeting that
glimpse of freedom overhead, she burst into tears, and said, 'She
tried to be; she uttered no complaint; but it was natural that she
should sometimes long to go out of that one cell: she could not
help THAT,' she sobbed, poor thing!
I went from cell to cell that day; and every face I saw, or word I
heard, or incident I noted, is present to my mind in all its
painfulness. But let me pass them by, for one, more pleasant,
glance of a prison on the same plan which I afterwards saw at
Pittsburg.
When I had gone over that, in the same manner, I asked the governor
if he had any person in his charge who was shortly going out. He
had one, he said, whose time was up next day; but he had only been
a prisoner two years.
Two years! I looked back through two years of my own life - out of
jail, prosperous, happy, surrounded by blessings, comforts, good
fortune - and thought how wide a gap it was, and how long those two
years passed in solitary captivity would have been. I have the
face of this man, who was going to be released next day, before me
now. It is almost more memorable in its happiness than the other
faces in their misery. How easy and how natural it was for him to
say that the system was a good one; and that the time went 'pretty
quick - considering;' and that when a man once felt that he had
offended the law, and must satisfy it, 'he got along, somehow:' and
so forth!
'What did he call you back to say to you, in that strange flutter?'
I asked of my conductor, when he had locked the door and joined me
in the passage.
'Oh! That he was afraid the soles of his boots were not fit for
walking, as they were a good deal worn when he came in; and that he
would thank me very much to have them mended, ready.'
Those boots had been taken off his feet, and put away with the rest
of his clothes, two years before!
I took that opportunity of inquiring how they conducted themselves
immediately before going out; adding that I presumed they trembled
very much.
'Well, it's not so much a trembling,' was the answer - 'though they
do quiver - as a complete derangement of the nervous system. They
can't sign their names to the book; sometimes can't even hold the
pen; look about 'em without appearing to know why, or where they
are; and sometimes get up and sit down again, twenty times in a
minute. This is when they're in the office, where they are taken
with the hood on, as they were brought in. When they get outside
the gate, they stop, and look first one way and then the other; not
knowing which to take. Sometimes they stagger as if they were
drunk, and sometimes are forced to lean against the fence, they're
so bad:- but they clear off in course of time.'
As I walked among these solitary cells, and looked at the faces of
the men within them, I tried to picture to myself the thoughts and
feelings natural to their condition. I imagined the hood just
taken off, and the scene of their captivity disclosed to them in
all its dismal monotony.
At first, the man is stunned. His confinement is a hideous vision;
and his old life a reality. He throws himself upon his bed, and
lies there abandoned to despair. By degrees the insupportable
solitude and barrenness of the place rouses him from this stupor,
and when the trap in his grated door is opened, he humbly begs and
prays for work. 'Give me some work to do, or I shall go raving
mad!'
He has it; and by fits and starts applies himself to labour; but
every now and then there comes upon him a burning sense of the
years that must be wasted in that stone coffin, and an agony so
piercing in the recollection of those who are hidden from his view
and knowledge, that he starts from his seat, and striding up and
down the narrow room with both hands clasped on his uplifted head,
hears spirits tempting him to beat his brains out on the wall.
Again he falls upon his bed, and lies there, moaning. Suddenly he
starts up, wondering whether any other man is near; whether there
is another cell like that on either side of him: and listens
keenly.
There is no sound, but other prisoners may be near for all that.
He remembers to have heard once, when he little thought of coming
here himself, that the cells were so constructed that the prisoners
could not hear each other, though the officers could hear them.
Where is the nearest man - upon the right, or on the left? or is
there one in both directions? Where is he sitting now - with his
face to the light? or is he walking to and fro? How is he dressed?
Has he been here long? Is he much worn away? Is he very white and
spectre-like? Does HE think of his neighbour too?
Scarcely venturing to breathe, and listening while he thinks, he
conjures up a figure with his back towards him, and imagines it
moving about in this next cell. He has no idea of the face, but he
is certain of the dark form of a stooping man. In the cell upon
the other side, he puts another figure, whose face is hidden from
him also. Day after day, and often when he wakes up in the middle
of the night, he thinks of these two men until he is almost
distracted. He never changes them. There they are always as he
first imagined them - an old man on the right; a younger man upon
the left - whose hidden features torture him to death, and have a
mystery that makes him tremble.
The weary days pass on with solemn pace, like mourners at a
funeral; and slowly he begins to feel that the white walls of the
cell have something dreadful in them: that their colour is
horrible: that their smooth surface chills his blood: that there
is one hateful corner which torments him. Every morning when he
wakes, he hides his head beneath the coverlet, and shudders to see
the ghastly ceiling looking down upon him. The blessed light of
day itself peeps in, an ugly phantom face, through the unchangeable
crevice which is his prison window.
By slow but sure degrees, the terrors of that hateful corner swell
until they beset him at all times; invade his rest, make his dreams
hideous, and his nights dreadful. At first, he took a strange
dislike to it; feeling as though it gave birth in his brain to
something of corresponding shape, which ought not to be there, and
racked his head with pains. Then he began to fear it, then to
dream of it, and of men whispering its name and pointing to it.
Then he could not bear to look at it, nor yet to turn his back upon
it. Now, it is every night the lurking-place of a ghost: a
shadow:- a silent something, horrible to see, but whether bird, or
beast, or muffled human shape, he cannot tell.
When he is in his cell by day, he fears the little yard without.
When he is in the yard, he dreads to re-enter the cell. When night
comes, there stands the phantom in the corner. If he have the
courage to stand in its place, and drive it out (he had once:
being desperate), it broods upon his bed. In the twilight, and
always at the same hour, a voice calls to him by name; as the
darkness thickens, his Loom begins to live; and even that, his
comfort, is a hideous figure, watching him till daybreak.
Again, by slow degrees, these horrible fancies depart from him one
by one: returning sometimes, unexpectedly, but at longer
intervals, and in less alarming shapes. He has talked upon
religious matters with the gentleman who visits him, and has read
his Bible, and has written a prayer upon his slate, and hung it up
as a kind of protection, and an assurance of Heavenly
companionship. He dreams now, sometimes, of his children or his
wife, but is sure that they are dead, or have deserted him. He is
easily moved to tears; is gentle, submissive, and broken-spirited.
Occasionally, the old agony comes back: a very little thing will
revive it; even a familiar sound, or the scent of summer flowers in
the air; but it does not last long, now: for the world without,
has come to be the vision, and this solitary life, the sad reality.
If his term of imprisonment be short - I mean comparatively, for
short it cannot be - the last half year is almost worse than all;
for then he thinks the prison will take fire and he be burnt in the
ruins, or that he is doomed to die within the walls, or that he
will be detained on some false charge and sentenced for another
term: or that something, no matter what, must happen to prevent
his going at large. And this is natural, and impossible to be
reasoned against, because, after his long separation from human
life, and his great suffering, any event will appear to him more
probable in the contemplation, than the being restored to liberty
and his fellow-creatures.
If his period of confinement have been very long, the prospect of
release bewilders and confuses him. His broken heart may flutter
for a moment, when he thinks of the world outside, and what it
might have been to him in all those lonely years, but that is all.
The cell-door has been closed too long on all its hopes and cares.
Better to have hanged him in the beginning than bring him to this
pass, and send him forth to mingle with his kind, who are his kind
no more.
On the haggard face of every man among these prisoners, the same
expression sat. I know not what to liken it to. It had something
of that strained attention which we see upon the faces of the blind
and deaf, mingled with a kind of horror, as though they had all
been secretly terrified. In every little chamber that I entered,
and at every grate through which I looked, I seemed to see the same
appalling countenance. It lives in my memory, with the fascination
of a remarkable picture. Parade before my eyes, a hundred men,
with one among them newly released from this solitary suffering,
and I would point him out.
The faces of the women, as I have said, it humanises and refines.
Whether this be because of their better nature, which is elicited
in solitude, or because of their being gentler creatures, of
greater patience and longer suffering, I do not know; but so it is.
That the punishment is nevertheless, to my thinking, fully as cruel
and as wrong in their case, as in that of the men, I need scarcely
add.
My firm conviction is that, independent of the mental anguish it
occasions - an anguish so acute and so tremendous, that all
imagination of it must fall far short of the reality - it wears the
mind into a morbid state, which renders it unfit for the rough
contact and busy action of the world. It is my fixed opinion that
those who have undergone this punishment, MUST pass into society
again morally unhealthy and diseased. There are many instances on
record, of men who have chosen, or have been condemned, to lives of
perfect solitude, but I scarcely remember one, even among sages of
strong and vigorous intellect, where its effect has not become
apparent, in some disordered train of thought, or some gloomy
hallucination. What monstrous phantoms, bred of despondency and
doubt, and born and reared in solitude, have stalked upon the
earth, making creation ugly, and darkening the face of Heaven!
Suicides are rare among these prisoners: are almost, indeed,
unknown. But no argument in favour of the system, can reasonably
be deduced from this circumstance, although it is very often urged.
All men who have made diseases of the mind their study, know
perfectly well that such extreme depression and despair as will
change the whole character, and beat down all its powers of
elasticity and self-resistance, may be at work within a man, and
yet stop short of self-destruction. This is a common case.
That it makes the senses dull, and by degrees impairs the bodily
faculties, I am quite sure. I remarked to those who were with me
in this very establishment at Philadelphia, that the criminals who
had been there long, were deaf. They, who were in the habit of
seeing these men constantly, were perfectly amazed at the idea,
which they regarded as groundless and fanciful. And yet the very
first prisoner to whom they appealed - one of their own selection
confirmed my impression (which was unknown to him) instantly, and
said, with a genuine air it was impossible to doubt, that he
couldn't think how it happened, but he WAS growing very dull of
hearing.
That it is a singularly unequal punishment, and affects the worst
man least, there is no doubt. In its superior efficiency as a
means of reformation, compared with that other code of regulations
which allows the prisoners to work in company without communicating
together, I have not the smallest faith. All the instances of
reformation that were mentioned to me, were of a kind that might
have been - and I have no doubt whatever, in my own mind, would
have been - equally well brought about by the Silent System. With
regard to such men as the negro burglar and the English thief, even
the most enthusiastic have scarcely any hope of their conversion.
It seems to me that the objection that nothing wholesome or good
has ever had its growth in such unnatural solitude, and that even a
dog or any of the more intelligent among beasts, would pine, and
mope, and rust away, beneath its influence, would be in itself a
sufficient argument against this system. But when we recollect, in
addition, how very cruel and severe it is, and that a solitary life
is always liable to peculiar and distinct objections of a most
deplorable nature, which have arisen here, and call to mind,
moreover, that the choice is not between this system, and a bad or
ill-considered one, but between it and another which has worked
well, and is, in its whole design and practice, excellent; there is
surely more than sufficient reason for abandoning a mode of
punishment attended by so little hope or promise, and fraught,
beyond dispute, with such a host of evils.
As a relief to its contemplation, I will close this chapter with a
curious story arising out of the same theme, which was related to
me, on the occasion of this visit, by some of the gentlemen
concerned.
At one of the periodical meetings of the inspectors of this prison,
a working man of Philadelphia presented himself before the Board,
and earnestly requested to be placed in solitary confinement. On
being asked what motive could possibly prompt him to make this
strange demand, he answered that he had an irresistible propensity
to get drunk; that he was constantly indulging it, to his great
misery and ruin; that he had no power of resistance; that he wished
to be put beyond the reach of temptation; and that he could think
of no better way than this. It was pointed out to him, in reply,
that the prison was for criminals who had been tried and sentenced
by the law, and could not be made available for any such fanciful
purposes; he was exhorted to abstain from intoxicating drinks, as
he surely might if he would; and received other very good advice,
with which he retired, exceedingly dissatisfied with the result of
his application.
He came again, and again, and again, and was so very earnest and
importunate, that at last they took counsel together, and said, 'He
will certainly qualify himself for admission, if we reject him any
more. Let us shut him up. He will soon be glad to go away, and
then we shall get rid of him.' So they made him sign a statement
which would prevent his ever sustaining an action for false
imprisonment, to the effect that his incarceration was voluntary,
and of his own seeking; they requested him to take notice that the
officer in attendance had orders to release him at any hour of the
day or night, when he might knock upon his door for that purpose;
but desired him to understand, that once going out, he would not be
admitted any more. These conditions agreed upon, and he still
remaining in the same mind, he was conducted to the prison, and
shut up in one of the cells.
In this cell, the man, who had not the firmness to leave a glass of
liquor standing untasted on a table before him - in this cell, in
solitary confinement, and working every day at his trade of
shoemaking, this man remained nearly two years. His health
beginning to fail at the expiration of that time, the surgeon
recommended that he should work occasionally in the garden; and as
he liked the notion very much, he went about this new occupation
with great cheerfulness.
He was digging here, one summer day, very industriously, when the
wicket in the outer gate chanced to be left open: showing, beyond,
the well-remembered dusty road and sunburnt fields. The way was as
free to him as to any man living, but he no sooner raised his head
and caught sight of it, all shining in the light, than, with the
involuntary instinct of a prisoner, he cast away his spade,
scampered off as fast as his legs would carry him, and never once
looked back.
CHAPTER VIII - WASHINGTON. THE LEGISLATURE. AND THE PRESIDENT'S
HOUSE
WE left Philadelphia by steamboat, at six o'clock one very cold
morning, and turned our faces towards Washington.
In the course of this day's journey, as on subsequent occasions, we
encountered some Englishmen (small farmers, perhaps, or country
publicans at home) who were settled in America, and were travelling
on their own affairs. Of all grades and kinds of men that jostle
one in the public conveyances of the States, these are often the
most intolerable and the most insufferable companions. United to
every disagreeable characteristic that the worst kind of American
travellers possess, these countrymen of ours display an amount of
insolent conceit and cool assumption of superiority, quite
monstrous to behold. In the coarse familiarity of their approach,
and the effrontery of their inquisitiveness (which they are in
great haste to assert, as if they panted to revenge themselves upon
the decent old restraints of home), they surpass any native
specimens that came within my range of observation: and I often
grew so patriotic when I saw and heard them, that I would
cheerfully have submitted to a reasonable fine, if I could have
given any other country in the whole world, the honour of claiming
them for its children.
As Washington may be called the head-quarters of tobacco-tinctured
saliva, the time is come when I must confess, without any disguise,
that the prevalence of those two odious practices of chewing and
expectorating began about this time to be anything but agreeable,
and soon became most offensive and sickening. In all the public
places of America, this filthy custom is recognised. In the courts
of law, the judge has his spittoon, the crier his, the witness his,
and the prisoner his; while the jurymen and spectators are provided
for, as so many men who in the course of nature must desire to spit
incessantly. In the hospitals, the students of medicine are
requested, by notices upon the wall, to eject their tobacco juice
into the boxes provided for that purpose, and not to discolour the
stairs. In public buildings, visitors are implored, through the
same agency, to squirt the essence of their quids, or 'plugs,' as I
have heard them called by gentlemen learned in this kind of
sweetmeat, into the national spittoons, and not about the bases of
the marble columns. But in some parts, this custom is inseparably
mixed up with every meal and morning call, and with all the
transactions of social life. The stranger, who follows in the
track I took myself, will find it in its full bloom and glory,
luxuriant in all its alarming recklessness, at Washington. And let
him not persuade himself (as I once did, to my shame) that previous
tourists have exaggerated its extent. The thing itself is an
exaggeration of nastiness, which cannot be outdone.
On board this steamboat, there were two young gentlemen, with
shirt-collars reversed as usual, and armed with very big walking-
sticks; who planted two seats in the middle of the deck, at a
distance of some four paces apart; took out their tobacco-boxes;
and sat down opposite each other, to chew. In less than a quarter
of an hour's time, these hopeful youths had shed about them on the
clean boards, a copious shower of yellow rain; clearing, by that
means, a kind of magic circle, within whose limits no intruders
dared to come, and which they never failed to refresh and re-
refresh before a spot was dry. This being before breakfast, rather
disposed me, I confess, to nausea; but looking attentively at one
of the expectorators, I plainly saw that he was young in chewing,
and felt inwardly uneasy, himself. A glow of delight came over me
at this discovery; and as I marked his face turn paler and paler,
and saw the ball of tobacco in his left cheek, quiver with his
suppressed agony, while yet he spat, and chewed, and spat again, in
emulation of his older friend, I could have fallen on his neck and
implored him to go on for hours.
We all sat down to a comfortable breakfast in the cabin below,
where there was no more hurry or confusion than at such a meal in
England, and where there was certainly greater politeness exhibited
than at most of our stage-coach banquets. At about nine o'clock we
arrived at the railroad station, and went on by the cars. At noon
we turned out again, to cross a wide river in another steamboat;
landed at a continuation of the railroad on the opposite shore; and
went on by other cars; in which, in the course of the next hour or
so, we crossed by wooden bridges, each a mile in length, two
creeks, called respectively Great and Little Gunpowder. The water
in both was blackened with flights of canvas-backed ducks, which
are most delicious eating, and abound hereabouts at that season of
the year.
These bridges are of wood, have no parapet, and are only just wide
enough for the passage of the trains; which, in the event of the
smallest accident, wound inevitably be plunged into the river.
They are startling contrivances, and are most agreeable when
passed.
We stopped to dine at Baltimore, and being now in Maryland, were
waited on, for the first time, by slaves. The sensation of
exacting any service from human creatures who are bought and sold,
and being, for the time, a party as it were to their condition, is
not an enviable one. The institution exists, perhaps, in its least
repulsive and most mitigated form in such a town as this; but it IS
slavery; and though I was, with respect to it, an innocent man, its
presence filled me with a sense of shame and self-reproach.
After dinner, we went down to the railroad again, and took our
seats in the cars for Washington. Being rather early, those men
and boys who happened to have nothing particular to do, and were
curious in foreigners, came (according to custom) round the
carriage in which I sat; let down all the windows; thrust in their
heads and shoulders; hooked themselves on conveniently, by their
elbows; and fell to comparing notes on the subject of my personal
appearance, with as much indifference as if I were a stuffed
figure. I never gained so much uncompromising information with
reference to my own nose and eyes, and various impressions wrought
by my mouth and chin on different minds, and how my head looks when
it is viewed from behind, as on these occasions. Some gentlemen
were only satisfied by exercising their sense of touch; and the
boys (who are surprisingly precocious in America) were seldom
satisfied, even by that, but would return to the charge over and
over again. Many a budding president has walked into my room with
his cap on his head and his hands in his pockets, and stared at me
for two whole hours: occasionally refreshing himself with a tweak
of his nose, or a draught from the water-jug; or by walking to the
windows and inviting other boys in the street below, to come up and
do likewise: crying, 'Here he is!' 'Come on!' 'Bring all your
brothers!' with other hospitable entreaties of that nature.
We reached Washington at about half-past six that evening, and had
upon the way a beautiful view of the Capitol, which is a fine
building of the Corinthian order, placed upon a noble and
commanding eminence. Arrived at the hotel; I saw no more of the
place that night; being very tired, and glad to get to bed.
Breakfast over next morning, I walk about the streets for an hour
or two, and, coming home, throw up the window in the front and
back, and look out. Here is Washington, fresh in my mind and under
my eye.
Take the worst parts of the City Road and Pentonville, or the
straggling outskirts of Paris, where the houses are smallest,
preserving all their oddities, but especially the small shops and
dwellings, occupied in Pentonville (but not in Washington) by
furniture-brokers, keepers of poor eating-houses, and fanciers of
birds. Burn the whole down; build it up again in wood and plaster;
widen it a little; throw in part of St. John's Wood; put green
blinds outside all the private houses, with a red curtain and a
white one in every window; plough up all the roads; plant a great
deal of coarse turf in every place where it ought NOT to be; erect
three handsome buildings in stone and marble, anywhere, but the
more entirely out of everybody's way the better; call one the Post
Office; one the Patent Office, and one the Treasury; make it
scorching hot in the morning, and freezing cold in the afternoon,
with an occasional tornado of wind and dust; leave a brick-field
without the bricks, in all central places where a street may
naturally be expected: and that's Washington.
The hotel in which we live, is a long row of small houses fronting
on the street, and opening at the back upon a common yard, in which
hangs a great triangle. Whenever a servant is wanted, somebody
beats on this triangle from one stroke up to seven, according to
the number of the house in which his presence is required; and as
all the servants are always being wanted, and none of them ever
come, this enlivening engine is in full performance the whole day
through. Clothes are drying in the same yard; female slaves, with
cotton handkerchiefs twisted round their heads are running to and
fro on the hotel business; black waiters cross and recross with
dishes in their hands; two great dogs are playing upon a mound of
loose bricks in the centre of the little square; a pig is turning
up his stomach to the sun, and grunting 'that's comfortable!'; and
neither the men, nor the women, nor the dogs, nor the pig, nor any
created creature, takes the smallest notice of the triangle, which
is tingling madly all the time.
I walk to the front window, and look across the road upon a long,
straggling row of houses, one story high, terminating, nearly
opposite, but a little to the left, in a melancholy piece of waste
ground with frowzy grass, which looks like a small piece of country
that has taken to drinking, and has quite lost itself. Standing
anyhow and all wrong, upon this open space, like something meteoric
that has fallen down from the moon, is an odd, lop-sided, one-eyed
kind of wooden building, that looks like a church, with a flag-
staff as long as itself sticking out of a steeple something larger
than a tea-chest. Under the window is a small stand of coaches,
whose slave-drivers are sunning themselves on the steps of our
door, and talking idly together. The three most obtrusive houses
near at hand are the three meanest. On one - a shop, which never
has anything in the window, and never has the door open - is
painted in large characters, 'THE CITY LUNCH.' At another, which
looks like a backway to somewhere else, but is an independent
building in itself, oysters are procurable in every style. At the
third, which is a very, very little tailor's shop, pants are fixed
to order; or in other words, pantaloons are made to measure. And
that is our street in Washington.
It is sometimes called the City of Magnificent Distances, but it
might with greater propriety be termed the City of Magnificent
Intentions; for it is only on taking a bird's-eye view of it from
the top of the Capitol, that one can at all comprehend the vast
designs of its projector, an aspiring Frenchman. Spacious avenues,
that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets, mile-long, that
only want houses, roads and inhabitants; public buildings that need
but a public to be complete; and ornaments of great thoroughfares,
which only lack great thoroughfares to ornament - are its leading
features. One might fancy the season over, and most of the houses
gone out of town for ever with their masters. To the admirers of
cities it is a Barmecide Feast: a pleasant field for the
imagination to rove in; a monument raised to a deceased project,
with not even a legible inscription to record its departed
greatness.
Such as it is, it is likely to remain. It was originally chosen
for the seat of Government, as a means of averting the conflicting
jealousies and interests of the different States; and very
probably, too, as being remote from mobs: a consideration not to
be slighted, even in America. It has no trade or commerce of its
own: having little or no population beyond the President and his
establishment; the members of the legislature who reside there
during the session; the Government clerks and officers employed in
the various departments; the keepers of the hotels and boarding-
houses; and the tradesmen who supply their tables. It is very
unhealthy. Few people would live in Washington, I take it, who
were not obliged to reside there; and the tides of emigration and
speculation, those rapid and regardless currents, are little likely
to flow at any time towards such dull and sluggish water.
The principal features of the Capitol, are, of course, the two
houses of Assembly. But there is, besides, in the centre of the
building, a fine rotunda, ninety-six feet in diameter, and ninety-
six high, whose circular wall is divided into compartments,
ornamented by historical pictures. Four of these have for their
subjects prominent events in the revolutionary struggle. They were
painted by Colonel Trumbull, himself a member of Washington's staff
at the time of their occurrence; from which circumstance they
derive a peculiar interest of their own. In this same hall Mr.
Greenough's large statue of Washington has been lately placed. It
has great merits of course, but it struck me as being rather
strained and violent for its subject. I could wish, however, to
have seen it in a better light than it can ever be viewed in, where
it stands.
There is a very pleasant and commodious library in the Capitol; and
from a balcony in front, the bird's-eye view, of which I have just
spoken, may be had, together with a beautiful prospect of the
adjacent country. In one of the ornamented portions of the
building, there is a figure of Justice; whereunto the Guide Book
says, 'the artist at first contemplated giving more of nudity, but
he was warned that the public sentiment in this country would not
admit of it, and in his caution he has gone, perhaps, into the
opposite extreme.' Poor Justice! she has been made to wear much
stranger garments in America than those she pines in, in the
Capitol. Let us hope that she has changed her dress-maker since
they were fashioned, and that the public sentiment of the country
did not cut out the clothes she hides her lovely figure in, just
now.
The House of Representatives is a beautiful and spacious hall, of
semicircular shape, supported by handsome pillars. One part of the
gallery is appropriated to the ladies, and there they sit in front
rows, and come in, and go out, as at a play or concert. The chair
is canopied, and raised considerably above the floor of the House;
and every member has an easy chair and a writing desk to himself:
which is denounced by some people out of doors as a most
unfortunate and injudicious arrangement, tending to long sittings
and prosaic speeches. It is an elegant chamber to look at, but a
singularly bad one for all purposes of hearing. The Senate, which
is smaller, is free from this objection, and is exceedingly well
adapted to the uses for which it is designed. The sittings, I need
hardly add, take place in the day; and the parliamentary forms are
modelled on those of the old country.
I was sometimes asked, in my progress through other places, whether
I had not been very much impressed by the HEADS of the lawmakers at
Washington; meaning not their chiefs and leaders, but literally
their individual and personal heads, whereon their hair grew, and
whereby the phrenological character of each legislator was
expressed: and I almost as often struck my questioner dumb with
indignant consternation by answering 'No, that I didn't remember
being at all overcome.' As I must, at whatever hazard, repeat the
avowal here, I will follow it up by relating my impressions on this
subject in as few words as possible.
In the first place - it may be from some imperfect development of
my organ of veneration - I do not remember having ever fainted
away, or having even been moved to tears of joyful pride, at sight
of any legislative body. I have borne the House of Commons like a
man, and have yielded to no weakness, but slumber, in the House of
Lords. I have seen elections for borough and county, and have
never been impelled (no matter which party won) to damage my hat by
throwing it up into the air in triumph, or to crack my voice by
shouting forth any reference to our Glorious Constitution, to the
noble purity of our independent voters, or, the unimpeachable
integrity of our independent members. Having withstood such strong
attacks upon my fortitude, it is possible that I may be of a cold
and insensible temperament, amounting to iciness, in such matters;
and therefore my impressions of the live pillars of the Capitol at
Washington must be received with such grains of allowance as this
free confession may seem to demand.
Did I see in this public body an assemblage of men, bound together
in the sacred names of Liberty and Freedom, and so asserting the
chaste dignity of those twin goddesses, in all their discussions,
as to exalt at once the Eternal Principles to which their names are
given, and their own character and the character of their
countrymen, in the admiring eyes of the whole world?
It was but a week, since an aged, grey-haired man, a lasting honour
to the land that gave him birth, who has done good service to his
country, as his forefathers did, and who will be remembered scores
upon scores of years after the worms bred in its corruption, are
but so many grains of dust - it was but a week, since this old man
had stood for days upon his trial before this very body, charged
with having dared to assert the infamy of that traffic, which has
for its accursed merchandise men and women, and their unborn
children. Yes. And publicly exhibited in the same city all the
while; gilded, framed and glazed hung up for general admiration;
shown to strangers not with shame, but pride; its face not turned
towards the wall, itself not taken down and burned; is the
Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America,
which solemnly declares that All Men are created Equal; and are
endowed by their Creator with the Inalienable Rights of Life,
Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness!
It was not a month, since this same body had sat calmly by, and
heard a man, one of themselves, with oaths which beggars in their
drink reject, threaten to cut another's throat from ear to ear.
There he sat, among them; not crushed by the general feeling of the
assembly, but as good a man as any.
There was but a week to come, and another of that body, for doing
his duty to those who sent him there; for claiming in a Republic
the Liberty and Freedom of expressing their sentiments, and making
known their prayer; would be tried, found guilty, and have strong
censure passed upon him by the rest. His was a grave offence
indeed; for years before, he had risen up and said, 'A gang of male
and female slaves for sale, warranted to breed like cattle, linked
to each other by iron fetters, are passing now along the open
street beneath the windows of your Temple of Equality! Look!' But
there are many kinds of hunters engaged in the Pursuit of
Happiness, and they go variously armed. It is the Inalienable
Right of some among them, to take the field after THEIR Happiness
equipped with cat and cartwhip, stocks, and iron collar, and to
shout their view halloa! (always in praise of Liberty) to the music
of clanking chains and bloody stripes.
Where sat the many legislators of coarse threats; of words and
blows such as coalheavers deal upon each other, when they forget
their breeding? On every side. Every session had its anecdotes of
that kind, and the actors were all there.
Did I recognise in this assembly, a body of men, who, applying
themselves in a new world to correct some of the falsehoods and
vices of the old, purified the avenues to Public Life, paved the
dirty ways to Place and Power, debated and made laws for the Common
Good, and had no party but their Country?
I saw in them, the wheels that move the meanest perversion of
virtuous Political Machinery that the worst tools ever wrought.
Despicable trickery at elections; under-handed tamperings with
public officers; cowardly attacks upon opponents, with scurrilous
newspapers for shields, and hired pens for daggers; shameful
trucklings to mercenary knaves, whose claim to be considered, is,
that every day and week they sow new crops of ruin with their venal
types, which are the dragon's teeth of yore, in everything but
sharpness; aidings and abettings of every bad inclination in the
popular mind, and artful suppressions of all its good influences:
such things as these, and in a word, Dishonest Faction in its most
depraved and most unblushing form, stared out from every corner of
the crowded hall.
Did I see among them, the intelligence and refinement: the true,
honest, patriotic heart of America? Here and there, were drops of
its blood and life, but they scarcely coloured the stream of
desperate adventurers which sets that way for profit and for pay.
It is the game of these men, and of their profligate organs, to
make the strife of politics so fierce and brutal, and so
destructive of all self-respect in worthy men, that sensitive and
delicate-minded persons shall be kept aloof, and they, and such as
they, be left to battle out their selfish views unchecked. And
thus this lowest of all scrambling fights goes on, and they who in
other countries would, from their intelligence and station, most
aspire to make the laws, do here recoil the farthest from that
degradation.
That there are, among the representatives of the people in both
Houses, and among all parties, some men of high character and great
abilities, I need not say. The foremost among those politicians
who are known in Europe, have been already described, and I see no
reason to depart from the rule I have laid down for my guidance, of
abstaining from all mention of individuals. It will be sufficient
to add, that to the most favourable accounts that have been written
of them, I more than fully and most heartily subscribe; and that
personal intercourse and free communication have bred within me,
not the result predicted in the very doubtful proverb, but
increased admiration and respect. They are striking men to look
at, hard to deceive, prompt to act, lions in energy, Crichtons in
varied accomplishments, Indians in fire of eye and gesture,
Americans in strong and generous impulse; and they as well
represent the honour and wisdom of their country at home, as the
distinguished gentleman who is now its Minister at the British
Court sustains its highest character abroad.
I visited both houses nearly every day, during my stay in
Washington. On my initiatory visit to the House of
Representatives, they divided against a decision of the chair; but
the chair won. The second time I went, the member who was
speaking, being interrupted by a laugh, mimicked it, as one child
would in quarrelling with another, and added, 'that he would make
honourable gentlemen opposite, sing out a little more on the other
side of their mouths presently.' But interruptions are rare; the
speaker being usually heard in silence. There are more quarrels
than with us, and more threatenings than gentlemen are accustomed
to exchange in any civilised society of which we have record: but
farm-yard imitations have not as yet been imported from the
Parliament of the United Kingdom. The feature in oratory which
appears to be the most practised, and most relished, is the
constant repetition of the same idea or shadow of an idea in fresh
words; and the inquiry out of doors is not, 'What did he say?' but,
'How long did he speak?' These, however, are but enlargements of a
principle which prevails elsewhere.
The Senate is a dignified and decorous body, and its proceedings
are conducted with much gravity and order. Both houses are
handsomely carpeted; but the state to which these carpets are
reduced by the universal disregard of the spittoon with which every
honourable member is accommodated, and the extraordinary
improvements on the pattern which are squirted and dabbled upon it
in every direction, do not admit of being described. I will merely
observe, that I strongly recommend all strangers not to look at the
floor; and if they happen to drop anything, though it be their
purse, not to pick it up with an ungloved hand on any account.
It is somewhat remarkable too, at first, to say the least, to see
so many honourable members with swelled faces; and it is scarcely
less remarkable to discover that this appearance is caused by the
quantity of tobacco they contrive to stow within the hollow of the
cheek. It is strange enough too, to see an honourable gentleman
leaning back in his tilted chair with his legs on the desk before
him, shaping a convenient 'plug' with his penknife, and when it is
quite ready for use, shooting the old one from his mouth, as from a
pop-gun, and clapping the new one in its place.
I was surprised to observe that even steady old chewers of great
experience, are not always good marksmen, which has rather inclined
me to doubt that general proficiency with the rifle, of which we
have heard so much in England. Several gentlemen called upon me
who, in the course of conversation, frequently missed the spittoon
at five paces; and one (but he was certainly short-sighted) mistook
the closed sash for the open window, at three. On another
occasion, when I dined out, and was sitting with two ladies and
some gentlemen round a fire before dinner, one of the company fell
short of the fireplace, six distinct times. I am disposed to
think, however, that this was occasioned by his not aiming at that
object; as there was a white marble hearth before the fender, which
was more convenient, and may have suited his purpose better.
The Patent Office at Washington, furnishes an extraordinary example
of American enterprise and ingenuity; for the immense number of
models it contains are the accumulated inventions of only five
years; the whole of the previous collection having been destroyed
by fire. The elegant structure in which they are arranged is one
of design rather than execution, for there is but one side erected
out of four, though the works are stopped. The Post Office is a
very compact and very beautiful building. In one of the
departments, among a collection of rare and curious articles, are
deposited the presents which have been made from time to time to
the American ambassadors at foreign courts by the various
potentates to whom they were the accredited agents of the Republic;
gifts which by the law they are not permitted to retain. I confess
that I looked upon this as a very painful exhibition, and one by no
means flattering to the national standard of honesty and honour.
That can scarcely be a high state of moral feeling which imagines a
gentleman of repute and station, likely to be corrupted, in the
discharge of his duty, by the present of a snuff-box, or a richly-
mounted sword, or an Eastern shawl; and surely the Nation who
reposes confidence in her appointed servants, is likely to be
better served, than she who makes them the subject of such very
mean and paltry suspicions.
At George Town, in the suburbs, there is a Jesuit College;
delightfully situated, and, so far as I had an opportunity of
seeing, well managed. Many persons who are not members of the
Romish Church, avail themselves, I believe, of these institutions,
and of the advantageous opportunities they afford for the education
of their children. The heights of this neighbourhood, above the
Potomac River, are very picturesque: and are free, I should
conceive, from some of the insalubrities of Washington. The air,
at that elevation, was quite cool and refreshing, when in the city
it was burning hot.
The President's mansion is more like an English club-house, both
within and without, than any other kind of establishment with which
I can compare it. The ornamental ground about it has been laid out
in garden walks; they are pretty, and agreeable to the eye; though
they have that uncomfortable air of having been made yesterday,
which is far from favourable to the display of such beauties.
My first visit to this house was on the morning after my arrival,
when I was carried thither by an official gentleman, who was so
kind as to charge himself with my presentation to the President.
We entered a large hall, and having twice or thrice rung a bell
which nobody answered, walked without further ceremony through the
rooms on the ground floor, as divers other gentlemen (mostly with
their hats on, and their hands in their pockets) were doing very
leisurely. Some of these had ladies with them, to whom they were
showing the premises; others were lounging on the chairs and sofas;
others, in a perfect state of exhaustion from listlessness, were
yawning drearily. The greater portion of this assemblage were
rather asserting their supremacy than doing anything else, as they
had no particular business there, that anybody knew of. A few were
closely eyeing the movables, as if to make quite sure that the
President (who was far from popular) had not made away with any of
the furniture, or sold the fixtures for his private benefit.
After glancing at these loungers; who were scattered over a pretty
drawing-room, opening upon a terrace which commanded a beautiful
prospect of the river and the adjacent country; and who were
sauntering, too, about a larger state-room called the Eastern
Drawing-room; we went up-stairs into another chamber, where were
certain visitors, waiting for audiences. At sight of my conductor,
a black in plain clothes and yellow slippers who was gliding
noiselessly about, and whispering messages in the ears of the more
impatient, made a sign of recognition, and glided off to announce
him.
We had previously looked into another chamber fitted all round with
a great, bare, wooden desk or counter, whereon lay files of
newspapers, to which sundry gentlemen were referring. But there
were no such means of beguiling the time in this apartment, which
was as unpromising and tiresome as any waiting-room in one of our
public establishments, or any physician's dining-room during his
hours of consultation at home.
There were some fifteen or twenty persons in the room. One, a
tall, wiry, muscular old man, from the west; sunburnt and swarthy;
with a brown white hat on his knees, and a giant umbrella resting
between his legs; who sat bolt upright in his chair, frowning
steadily at the carpet, and twitching the hard lines about his
mouth, as if he had made up his mind 'to fix' the President on what
he had to say, and wouldn't bate him a grain. Another, a Kentucky
farmer, six-feet-six in height, with his hat on, and his hands
under his coat-tails, who leaned against the wall and kicked the
floor with his heel, as though he had Time's head under his shoe,
and were literally 'killing' him. A third, an oval-faced, bilious-
looking man, with sleek black hair cropped close, and whiskers and
beard shaved down to blue dots, who sucked the head of a thick
stick, and from time to time took it out of his mouth, to see how
it was getting on. A fourth did nothing but whistle. A fifth did
nothing but spit. And indeed all these gentlemen were so very
persevering and energetic in this latter particular, and bestowed
their favours so abundantly upon the carpet, that I take it for
granted the Presidential housemaids have high wages, or, to speak
more genteelly, an ample amount of 'compensation:' which is the
American word for salary, in the case of all public servants.
We had not waited in this room many minutes, before the black
messenger returned, and conducted us into another of smaller
dimensions, where, at a business-like table covered with papers,
sat the President himself. He looked somewhat worn and anxious,
and well he might; being at war with everybody - but the expression
of his face was mild and pleasant, and his manner was remarkably
unaffected, gentlemanly, and agreeable. I thought that in his
whole carriage and demeanour, he became his station singularly
well.
Being advised that the sensible etiquette of the republican court
admitted of a traveller, like myself, declining, without any
impropriety, an invitation to dinner, which did not reach me until
I had concluded my arrangements for leaving Washington some days
before that to which it referred, I only returned to this house
once. It was on the occasion of one of those general assemblies
which are held on certain nights, between the hours of nine and
twelve o'clock, and are called, rather oddly, Levees.
I went, with my wife, at about ten. There was a pretty dense crowd
of carriages and people in the court-yard, and so far as I could
make out, there were no very clear regulations for the taking up or
setting down of company. There were certainly no policemen to
soothe startled horses, either by sawing at their bridles or
flourishing truncheons in their eyes; and I am ready to make oath
that no inoffensive persons were knocked violently on the head, or
poked acutely in their backs or stomachs; or brought to a
standstill by any such gentle means, and then taken into custody
for not moving on. But there was no confusion or disorder. Our
carriage reached the porch in its turn, without any blustering,
swearing, shouting, backing, or other disturbance: and we
dismounted with as much ease and comfort as though we had been
escorted by the whole Metropolitan Force from A to Z inclusive.
The suite of rooms on the ground-floor were lighted up, and a
military band was playing in the hall. In the smaller drawing-
room, the centre of a circle of company, were the President and his
daughter-in-law, who acted as the lady of the mansion; and a very
interesting, graceful, and accomplished lady too. One gentleman
who stood among this group, appeared to take upon himself the
functions of a master of the ceremonies. I saw no other officers
or attendants, and none were needed.
The great drawing-room, which I have already mentioned, and the
other chambers on the ground-floor, were crowded to excess. The
company was not, in our sense of the term, select, for it
comprehended persons of very many grades and classes; nor was there
any great display of costly attire: indeed, some of the costumes
may have been, for aught I know, grotesque enough. But the decorum
and propriety of behaviour which prevailed, were unbroken by any
rude or disagreeable incident; and every man, even among the
miscellaneous crowd in the hall who were admitted without any
orders or tickets to look on, appeared to feel that he was a part
of the Institution, and was responsible for its preserving a
becoming character, and appearing to the best advantage.
That these visitors, too, whatever their station, were not without
some refinement of taste and appreciation of intellectual gifts,
and gratitude to those men who, by the peaceful exercise of great
abilities, shed new charms and associations upon the homes of their
countrymen, and elevate their character in other lands, was most
earnestly testified by their reception of Washington Irving, my
dear friend, who had recently been appointed Minister at the court
of Spain, and who was among them that night, in his new character,
for the first and last time before going abroad. I sincerely
believe that in all the madness of American politics, few public
men would have been so earnestly, devotedly, and affectionately
caressed, as this most charming writer: and I have seldom
respected a public assembly more, than I did this eager throng,
when I saw them turning with one mind from noisy orators and
officers of state, and flocking with a generous and honest impulse
round the man of quiet pursuits: proud in his promotion as
reflecting back upon their country: and grateful to him with their
whole hearts for the store of graceful fancies he had poured out
among them. Long may he dispense such treasures with unsparing
hand; and long may they remember him as worthily!
* * * * * *
The term we had assigned for the duration of our stay in Washington
was now at an end, and we were to begin to travel; for the railroad
distances we had traversed yet, in journeying among these older
towns, are on that great continent looked upon as nothing.
I had at first intended going South - to Charleston. But when I
came to consider the length of time which this journey would
occupy, and the premature heat of the season, which even at
Washington had been often very trying; and weighed moreover, in my
own mind, the pain of living in the constant contemplation of
slavery, against the more than doubtful chances of my ever seeing
it, in the time I had to spare, stripped of the disguises in which
it would certainly be dressed, and so adding any item to the host
of facts already heaped together on the subject; I began to listen
to old whisperings which had often been present to me at home in
England, when I little thought of ever being here; and to dream
again of cities growing up, like palaces in fairy tales, among the
wilds and forests of the west.
The advice I received in most quarters when I began to yield to my
desire of travelling towards that point of the compass was,
according to custom, sufficiently cheerless: my companion being
threatened with more perils, dangers, and discomforts, than I can
remember or would catalogue if I could; but of which it will be
sufficient to remark that blowings-up in steamboats and breakings-
down in coaches were among the least. But, having a western route
sketched out for me by the best and kindest authority to which I
could have resorted, and putting no great faith in these
discouragements, I soon determined on my plan of action.
This was to travel south, only to Richmond in Virginia; and then to
turn, and shape our course for the Far West; whither I beseech the
reader's company, in a new chapter.
CHAPTER IX - A NIGHT STEAMER ON THE POTOMAC RIVER. VIRGINIA ROAD,
AND A BLACK DRIVER. RICHMOND. BALTIMORE. THE HARRISBURG MAIL,
AND A GLIMPSE OF THE CITY. A CANAL BOAT
WE were to proceed in the first instance by steamboat; and as it is
usual to sleep on board, in consequence of the starting-hour being
four o'clock in the morning, we went down to where she lay, at that
very uncomfortable time for such expeditions when slippers are most
valuable, and a familiar bed, in the perspective of an hour or two,
looks uncommonly pleasant.
It is ten o'clock at night: say half-past ten: moonlight, warm,
and dull enough. The steamer (not unlike a child's Noah's ark in
form, with the machinery on the top of the roof) is riding lazily
up and down, and bumping clumsily against the wooden pier, as the
ripple of the river trifles with its unwieldy carcase. The wharf
is some distance from the city. There is nobody down here; and one
or two dull lamps upon the steamer's decks are the only signs of
life remaining, when our coach has driven away. As soon as our
footsteps are heard upon the planks, a fat negress, particularly
favoured by nature in respect of bustle, emerges from some dark
stairs, and marshals my wife towards the ladies' cabin, to which
retreat she goes, followed by a mighty bale of cloaks and great-
coats. I valiantly resolve not to go to bed at all, but to walk up
and down the pier till morning.
I begin my promenade - thinking of all kinds of distant things and
persons, and of nothing near - and pace up and down for half-an-
hour. Then I go on board again; and getting into the light of one
of the lamps, look at my watch and think it must have stopped; and
wonder what has become of the faithful secretary whom I brought
along with me from Boston. He is supping with our late landlord (a
Field Marshal, at least, no doubt) in honour of our departure, and
may be two hours longer. I walk again, but it gets duller and
duller: the moon goes down: next June seems farther off in the
dark, and the echoes of my footsteps make me nervous. It has
turned cold too; and walking up and down without my companion in
such lonely circumstances, is but poor amusement. So I break my
staunch resolution, and think it may be, perhaps, as well to go to
bed.
I go on board again; open the door of the gentlemen's cabin and
walk in. Somehow or other - from its being so quiet, I suppose - I
have taken it into my head that there is nobody there. To my
horror and amazement it is full of sleepers in every stage, shape,
attitude, and variety of slumber: in the berths, on the chairs, on
the floors, on the tables, and particularly round the stove, my
detested enemy. I take another step forward, and slip on the
shining face of a black steward, who lies rolled in a blanket on
the floor. He jumps up, grins, half in pain and half in
hospitality; whispers my own name in my ear; and groping among the
sleepers, leads me to my berth. Standing beside it, I count these
slumbering passengers, and get past forty. There is no use in
going further, so I begin to undress. As the chairs are all
occupied, and there is nothing else to put my clothes on, I deposit
them upon the ground: not without soiling my hands, for it is in
the same condition as the carpets in the Capitol, and from the same
cause. Having but partially undressed, I clamber on my shelf, and
hold the curtain open for a few minutes while I look round on all
my fellow-travellers again. That done, I let it fall on them, and
on the world: turn round: and go to sleep.
I wake, of course, when we get under weigh, for there is a good
deal of noise. The day is then just breaking. Everybody wakes at
the same time. Some are self-possessed directly, and some are much
perplexed to make out where they are until they have rubbed their
eyes, and leaning on one elbow, looked about them. Some yawn, some
groan, nearly all spit, and a few get up. I am among the risers:
for it is easy to feel, without going into the fresh air, that the
atmosphere of the cabin is vile in the last degree. I huddle on my
clothes, go down into the fore-cabin, get shaved by the barber, and
wash myself. The washing and dressing apparatus for the passengers
generally, consists of two jack-towels, three small wooden basins,
a keg of water and a ladle to serve it out with, six square inches
of looking-glass, two ditto ditto of yellow soap, a comb and brush
for the head, and nothing for the teeth. Everybody uses the comb
and brush, except myself. Everybody stares to see me using my own;
and two or three gentlemen are strongly disposed to banter me on my
prejudices, but don't. When I have made my toilet, I go upon the
hurricane-deck, and set in for two hours of hard walking up and
down. The sun is rising brilliantly; we are passing Mount Vernon,
where Washington lies buried; the river is wide and rapid; and its
banks are beautiful. All the glory and splendour of the day are
coming on, and growing brighter every minute.
At eight o'clock, we breakfast in the cabin where I passed the
night, but the windows and doors are all thrown open, and now it is
fresh enough. There is no hurry or greediness apparent in the
despatch of the meal. It is longer than a travelling breakfast
with us; more orderly, and more polite.
Soon after nine o'clock we come to Potomac Creek, where we are to
land; and then comes the oddest part of the journey. Seven stage-
coaches are preparing to carry us on. Some of them are ready, some
of them are not ready. Some of the drivers are blacks, some
whites. There are four horses to each coach, and all the horses,
harnessed or unharnessed, are there. The passengers are getting
out of the steamboat, and into the coaches; the luggage is being
transferred in noisy wheelbarrows; the horses are frightened, and
impatient to start; the black drivers are chattering to them like
so many monkeys; and the white ones whooping like so many drovers:
for the main thing to be done in all kinds of hostlering here, is
to make as much noise as possible. The coaches are something like
the French coaches, but not nearly so good. In lieu of springs,
they are hung on bands of the strongest leather. There is very
little choice or difference between them; and they may be likened
to the car portion of the swings at an English fair, roofed, put
upon axle-trees and wheels, and curtained with painted canvas.
They are covered with mud from the roof to the wheel-tire, and have
never been cleaned since they were first built.
The tickets we have received on board the steamboat are marked No.
1, so we belong to coach No. 1. I throw my coat on the box, and
hoist my wife and her maid into the inside. It has only one step,
and that being about a yard from the ground, is usually approached
by a chair: when there is no chair, ladies trust in Providence.
The coach holds nine inside, having a seat across from door to
door, where we in England put our legs: so that there is only one
feat more difficult in the performance than getting in, and that
is, getting out again. There is only one outside passenger, and he
sits upon the box. As I am that one, I climb up; and while they
are strapping the luggage on the roof, and heaping it into a kind
of tray behind, have a good opportunity of looking at the driver.
He is a negro - very black indeed. He is dressed in a coarse
pepper-and-salt suit excessively patched and darned (particularly
at the knees), grey stockings, enormous unblacked high-low shoes,
and very short trousers. He has two odd gloves: one of parti-
coloured worsted, and one of leather. He has a very short whip,
broken in the middle and bandaged up with string. And yet he wears
a low-crowned, broad-brimmed, black hat: faintly shadowing forth a
kind of insane imitation of an English coachman! But somebody in
authority cries 'Go ahead!' as I am making these observations. The
mail takes the lead in a four-horse waggon, and all the coaches
follow in procession: headed by No. 1.
By the way, whenever an Englishman would cry 'All right!' an
American cries 'Go ahead!' which is somewhat expressive of the
national character of the two countries.
The first half-mile of the road is over bridges made of loose
planks laid across two parallel poles, which tilt up as the wheels
roll over them; and IN the river. The river has a clayey bottom
and is full of holes, so that half a horse is constantly
disappearing unexpectedly, and can't be found again for some time.
But we get past even this, and come to the road itself, which is a
series of alternate swamps and gravel-pits. A tremendous place is
close before us, the black driver rolls his eyes, screws his mouth
up very round, and looks straight between the two leaders, as if he
were saying to himself, 'We have done this often before, but NOW I
think we shall have a crash.' He takes a rein in each hand; jerks
and pulls at both; and dances on the splashboard with both feet
(keeping his seat, of course) like the late lamented Ducrow on two
of his fiery coursers. We come to the spot, sink down in the mire
nearly to the coach windows, tilt on one side at an angle of forty-
five degrees, and stick there. The insides scream dismally; the
coach stops; the horses flounder; all the other six coaches stop;
and their four-and-twenty horses flounder likewise: but merely for
company, and in sympathy with ours. Then the following
circumstances occur.
BLACK DRIVER (to the horses). 'Hi!'
Nothing happens. Insides scream again.
BLACK DRIVER (to the horses). 'Ho!'
Horses plunge, and splash the black driver.
GENTLEMAN INSIDE (looking out). 'Why, what on airth -
Gentleman receives a variety of splashes and draws his head in
again, without finishing his question or waiting for an answer.
BLACK DRIVER (still to the horses). 'Jiddy! Jiddy!'
Horses pull violently, drag the coach out of the hole, and draw it
up a bank; so steep, that the black driver's legs fly up into the
air, and he goes back among the luggage on the roof. But he
immediately recovers himself, and cries (still to the horses),
'Pill!'
No effect. On the contrary, the coach begins to roll back upon No.
2, which rolls back upon No. 3, which rolls back upon No. 4, and so
on, until No. 7 is heard to curse and swear, nearly a quarter of a
mile behind.
BLACK DRIVER (louder than before). 'Pill!'
Horses make another struggle to get up the bank, and again the
coach rolls backward.
BLACK DRIVER (louder than before). 'Pe-e-e-ill!'
Horses make a desperate struggle.
BLACK DRIVER (recovering spirits). 'Hi, Jiddy, Jiddy, Pill!'
Horses make another effort.
BLACK DRIVER (with great vigour). 'Ally Loo! Hi. Jiddy, Jiddy.
Pill. Ally Loo!'
Horses almost do it.
BLACK DRIVER (with his eyes starting out of his head). 'Lee, den.
Lee, dere. Hi. Jiddy, Jiddy. Pill. Ally Loo. Lee-e-e-e-e!'
They run up the bank, and go down again on the other side at a
fearful pace. It is impossible to stop them, and at the bottom
there is a deep hollow, full of water. The coach rolls
frightfully. The insides scream. The mud and water fly about us.
The black driver dances like a madman. Suddenly we are all right
by some extraordinary means, and stop to breathe.
A black friend of the black driver is sitting on a fence. The
black driver recognises him by twirling his head round and round
like a harlequin, rolling his eyes, shrugging his shoulders, and
grinning from ear to ear. He stops short, turns to me, and says:
'We shall get you through sa, like a fiddle, and hope a please you
when we get you through sa. Old 'ooman at home sa:' chuckling very
much. 'Outside gentleman sa, he often remember old 'ooman at home
sa,' grinning again.
'Ay ay, we'll take care of the old woman. Don't be afraid.'
The black driver grins again, but there is another hole, and beyond
that, another bank, close before us. So he stops short: cries (to
the horses again) 'Easy. Easy den. Ease. Steady. Hi. Jiddy.
Pill. Ally. Loo,' but never 'Lee!' until we are reduced to the
very last extremity, and are in the midst of difficulties,
extrication from which appears to be all but impossible.
And so we do the ten miles or thereabouts in two hours and a half;
breaking no bones, though bruising a great many; and in short
getting through the distance, 'like a fiddle.'
This singular kind of coaching terminates at Fredericksburgh,
whence there is a railway to Richmond. The tract of country
through which it takes its course was once productive; but the soil
has been exhausted by the system of employing a great amount of
slave labour in forcing crops, without strengthening the land: and
it is now little better than a sandy desert overgrown with trees.
Dreary and uninteresting as its aspect is, I was glad to the heart
to find anything on which one of the curses of this horrible
institution has fallen; and had greater pleasure in contemplating
the withered ground, than the richest and most thriving cultivation
in the same place could possibly have afforded me.
In this district, as in all others where slavery sits brooding, (I
have frequently heard this admitted, even by those who are its
warmest advocates:) there is an air of ruin and decay abroad, which
is inseparable from the system. The barns and outhouses are
mouldering away; the sheds are patched and half roofless; the log
cabins (built in Virginia with external chimneys made of clay or
wood) are squalid in the last degree. There is no look of decent
comfort anywhere. The miserable stations by the railway side, the
great wild wood-yards, whence the engine is supplied with fuel; the
negro children rolling on the ground before the cabin doors, with
dogs and pigs; the biped beasts of burden slinking past: gloom and
dejection are upon them all.
In the negro car belonging to the train in which we made this
journey, were a mother and her children who had just been
purchased; the husband and father being left behind with their old
owner. The children cried the whole way, and the mother was
misery's picture. The champion of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit
of Happiness, who had bought them, rode in the same train; and,
every time we stopped, got down to see that they were safe. The
black in Sinbad's Travels with one eye in the middle of his
forehead which shone like a burning coal, was nature's aristocrat
compared with this white gentleman.
It was between six and seven o'clock in the evening, when we drove
to the hotel: in front of which, and on the top of the broad
flight of steps leading to the door, two or three citizens were
balancing themselves on rocking-chairs, and smoking cigars. We
found it a very large and elegant establishment, and were as well
entertained as travellers need desire to be. The climate being a
thirsty one, there was never, at any hour of the day, a scarcity of
loungers in the spacious bar, or a cessation of the mixing of cool
liquors: but they were a merrier people here, and had musical
instruments playing to them o' nights, which it was a treat to hear
again.
The next day, and the next, we rode and walked about the town,
which is delightfully situated on eight hills, overhanging James
River; a sparkling stream, studded here and there with bright
islands, or brawling over broken rocks. Although it was yet but
the middle of March, the weather in this southern temperature was
extremely warm; the peech-trees and magnolias were in full bloom;
and the trees were green. In a low ground among the hills, is a
valley known as 'Bloody Run,' from a terrible conflict with the
Indians which once occurred there. It is a good place for such a
struggle, and, like every other spot I saw associated with any
legend of that wild people now so rapidly fading from the earth,
interested me very much.
The city is the seat of the local parliament of Virginia; and in
its shady legislative halls, some orators were drowsily holding
forth to the hot noon day. By dint of constant repetition,
however, these constitutional sights had very little more interest
for me than so many parochial vestries; and I was glad to exchange
this one for a lounge in a well-arranged public library of some ten
thousand volumes, and a visit to a tobacco manufactory, where the
workmen are all slaves.
I saw in this place the whole process of picking, rolling,
pressing, drying, packing in casks, and branding. All the tobacco
thus dealt with, was in course of manufacture for chewing; and one
would have supposed there was enough in that one storehouse to have
filled even the comprehensive jaws of America. In this form, the
weed looks like the oil-cake on which we fatten cattle; and even
without reference to its consequences, is sufficiently uninviting.
Many of the workmen appeared to be strong men, and it is hardly
necessary to add that they were all labouring quietly, then. After
two o'clock in the day, they are allowed to sing, a certain number
at a time. The hour striking while I was there, some twenty sang a
hymn in parts, and sang it by no means ill; pursuing their work
meanwhile. A bell rang as I was about to leave, and they all
poured forth into a building on the opposite side of the street to
dinner. I said several times that I should like to see them at
their meal; but as the gentleman to whom I mentioned this desire
appeared to be suddenly taken rather deaf, I did not pursue the
request. Of their appearance I shall have something to say,
presently.
On the following day, I visited a plantation or farm, of about
twelve hundred acres, on the opposite bank of the river. Here
again, although I went down with the owner of the estate, to 'the
quarter,' as that part of it in which the slaves live is called, I
was not invited to enter into any of their huts. All I saw of
them, was, that they were very crazy, wretched cabins, near to
which groups of half-naked children basked in the sun, or wallowed
on the dusty ground. But I believe that this gentleman is a
considerate and excellent master, who inherited his fifty slaves,
and is neither a buyer nor a seller of human stock; and I am sure,
from my own observation and conviction, that he is a kind-hearted,
worthy man.
The planter's house was an airy, rustic dwelling, that brought
Defoe's description of such places strongly to my recollection.
The day was very warm, but the blinds being all closed, and the
windows and doors set wide open, a shady coolness rustled through
the rooms, which was exquisitely refreshing after the glare and
heat without. Before the windows was an open piazza, where, in
what they call the hot weather - whatever that may be - they sling
hammocks, and drink and doze luxuriously. I do not know how their
cool rejections may taste within the hammocks, but, having
experience, I can report that, out of them, the mounds of ices and
the bowls of mint-julep and sherry-cobbler they make in these
latitudes, are refreshments never to be thought of afterwards, in
summer, by those who would preserve contented minds.
There are two bridges across the river: one belongs to the
railroad, and the other, which is a very crazy affair, is the
private property of some old lady in the neighbourhood, who levies
tolls upon the townspeople. Crossing this bridge, on my way back,
I saw a notice painted on the gate, cautioning all persons to drive
slowly: under a penalty, if the offender were a white man, of five
dollars; if a negro, fifteen stripes.
The same decay and gloom that overhang the way by which it is
approached, hover above the town of Richmond. There are pretty
villas and cheerful houses in its streets, and Nature smiles upon
the country round; but jostling its handsome residences, like
slavery itself going hand in hand with many lofty virtues, are
deplorable tenements, fences unrepaired, walls crumbling into
ruinous heaps. Hinting gloomily at things below the surface,
these, and many other tokens of the same description, force
themselves upon the notice, and are remembered with depressing
influence, when livelier features are forgotten.
To those who are happily unaccustomed to them, the countenances in
the streets and labouring-places, too, are shocking. All men who
know that there are laws against instructing slaves, of which the
pains and penalties greatly exceed in their amount the fines
imposed on those who maim and torture them, must be prepared to
find their faces very low in the scale of intellectual expression.
But the darkness - not of skin, but mind - which meets the
stranger's eye at every turn; the brutalizing and blotting out of
all fairer characters traced by Nature's hand; immeasurably outdo
his worst belief. That travelled creation of the great satirist's
brain, who fresh from living among horses, peered from a high
casement down upon his own kind with trembling horror, was scarcely
more repelled and daunted by the sight, than those who look upon
some of these faces for the first time must surely be.
I left the last of them behind me in the person of a wretched
drudge, who, after running to and fro all day till midnight, and
moping in his stealthy winks of sleep upon the stairs
betweenwhiles, was washing the dark passages at four o'clock in the
morning; and went upon my way with a grateful heart that I was not
doomed to live where slavery was, and had never had my senses
blunted to its wrongs and horrors in a slave-rocked cradle.
It had been my intention to proceed by James River and Chesapeake
Bay to Baltimore; but one of the steamboats being absent from her
station through some accident, and the means of conveyance being
consequently rendered uncertain, we returned to Washington by the
way we had come (there were two constables on board the steamboat,
in pursuit of runaway slaves), and halting there again for one
night, went on to Baltimore next afternoon.
The most comfortable of all the hotels of which I had any
experience in the United States, and they were not a few, is
Barnum's, in that city: where the English traveller will find
curtains to his bed, for the first and probably the last time in
America (this is a disinterested remark, for I never use them); and
where he will be likely to have enough water for washing himself,
which is not at all a common case.
This capital of the state of Maryland is a bustling, busy town,
with a great deal of traffic of various kinds, and in particular of
water commerce. That portion of the town which it most favours is
none of the cleanest, it is true; but the upper part is of a very
different character, and has many agreeable streets and public
buildings. The Washington Monument, which is a handsome pillar
with a statue on its summit; the Medical College; and the Battle
Monument in memory of an engagement with the British at North
Point; are the most conspicuous among them.
There is a very good prison in this city, and the State
Penitentiary is also among its institutions. In this latter
establishment there were two curious cases.
One was that of a young man, who had been tried for the murder of
his father. The evidence was entirely circumstantial, and was very
conflicting and doubtful; nor was it possible to assign any motive
which could have tempted him to the commission of so tremendous a
crime. He had been tried twice; and on the second occasion the
jury felt so much hesitation in convicting him, that they found a
verdict of manslaughter, or murder in the second degree; which it
could not possibly be, as there had, beyond all doubt, been no
quarrel or provocation, and if he were guilty at all, he was
unquestionably guilty of murder in its broadest and worst
signification.
The remarkable feature in the case was, that if the unfortunate
deceased were not really murdered by this own son of his, he must
have been murdered by his own brother. The evidence lay in a most
remarkable manner, between those two. On all the suspicious
points, the dead man's brother was the witness: all the
explanations for the prisoner (some of them extremely plausible)
went, by construction and inference, to inculcate him as plotting
to fix the guilt upon his nephew. It must have been one of them:
and the jury had to decide between two sets of suspicions, almost
equally unnatural, unaccountable, and strange.
The other case, was that of a man who once went to a certain
distiller's and stole a copper measure containing a quantity of
liquor. He was pursued and taken with the property in his
possession, and was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. On
coming out of the jail, at the expiration of that term, he went
back to the same distiller's, and stole the same copper measure
containing the same quantity of liquor. There was not the
slightest reason to suppose that the man wished to return to
prison: indeed everything, but the commission of the offence, made
directly against that assumption. There are only two ways of
accounting for this extraordinary proceeding. One is, that after
undergoing so much for this copper measure he conceived he had
established a sort of claim and right to it. The other that, by
dint of long thinking about, it had become a monomania with him,
and had acquired a fascination which he found it impossible to
resist; swelling from an Earthly Copper Gallon into an Ethereal
Golden Vat.
After remaining here a couple of days I bound myself to a rigid
adherence to the plan I had laid down so recently, and resolved to
set forward on our western journey without any more delay.
Accordingly, having reduced the luggage within the smallest
possible compass (by sending back to New York, to be afterwards
forwarded to us in Canada, so much of it as was not absolutely
wanted); and having procured the necessary credentials to banking-
houses on the way; and having moreover looked for two evenings at
the setting sun, with as well-defined an idea of the country before
us as if we had been going to travel into the very centre of that
planet; we left Baltimore by another railway at half-past eight in
the morning, and reached the town of York, some sixty miles off, by
the early dinner-time of the Hotel which was the starting-place of
the four-horse coach, wherein we were to proceed to Harrisburg.
This conveyance, the box of which I was fortunate enough to secure,
had come down to meet us at the railroad station, and was as muddy
and cumbersome as usual. As more passengers were waiting for us at
the inn-door, the coachman observed under his breath, in the usual
self-communicative voice, looking the while at his mouldy harness
as if it were to that he was addressing himself,
'I expect we shall want THE BIG coach.'
I could not help wondering within myself what the size of this big
coach might be, and how many persons it might be designed to hold;
for the vehicle which was too small for our purpose was something
larger than two English heavy night coaches, and might have been
the twin-brother of a French Diligence. My speculations were
speedily set at rest, however, for as soon as we had dined, there
came rumbling up the street, shaking its sides like a corpulent
giant, a kind of barge on wheels. After much blundering and
backing, it stopped at the door: rolling heavily from side to side
when its other motion had ceased, as if it had taken cold in its
damp stable, and between that, and the having been required in its
dropsical old age to move at any faster pace than a walk, were
distressed by shortness of wind.
'If here ain't the Harrisburg mail at last, and dreadful bright and
smart to look at too,' cried an elderly gentleman in some
excitement, 'darn my mother!'
I don't know what the sensation of being darned may be, or whether
a man's mother has a keener relish or disrelish of the process than
anybody else; but if the endurance of this mysterious ceremony by
the old lady in question had depended on the accuracy of her son's
vision in respect to the abstract brightness and smartness of the
Harrisburg mail, she would certainly have undergone its infliction.
However, they booked twelve people inside; and the luggage
(including such trifles as a large rocking-chair, and a good-sized
dining-table) being at length made fast upon the roof, we started
off in great state.
At the door of another hotel, there was another passenger to be
taken up.
'Any room, sir?' cries the new passenger to the coachman.
'Well, there's room enough,' replies the coachman, without getting
down, or even looking at him.
'There an't no room at all, sir,' bawls a gentleman inside. Which
another gentleman (also inside) confirms, by predicting that the
attempt to introduce any more passengers 'won't fit nohow.'
The new passenger, without any expression of anxiety, looks into
the coach, and then looks up at the coachman: 'Now, how do you
mean to fix it?' says he, after a pause: 'for I MUST go.'
The coachman employs himself in twisting the lash of his whip into
a knot, and takes no more notice of the question: clearly
signifying that it is anybody's business but his, and that the
passengers would do well to fix it, among themselves. In this
state of things, matters seem to be approximating to a fix of
another kind, when another inside passenger in a corner, who is
nearly suffocated, cries faintly, 'I'll get out.'
This is no matter of relief or self-congratulation to the driver,
for his immovable philosophy is perfectly undisturbed by anything
that happens in the coach. Of all things in the world, the coach
would seem to be the very last upon his mind. The exchange is
made, however, and then the passenger who has given up his seat
makes a third upon the box, seating himself in what he calls the
middle; that is, with half his person on my legs, and the other
half on the driver's.
'Go a-head, cap'en,' cries the colonel, who directs.
'Go-lang!' cries the cap'en to his company, the horses, and away we
go.
We took up at a rural bar-room, after we had gone a few miles, an
intoxicated gentleman who climbed upon the roof among the luggage,
and subsequently slipping off without hurting himself, was seen in
the distant perspective reeling back to the grog-shop where we had
found him. We also parted with more of our freight at different
times, so that when we came to change horses, I was again alone
outside.
The coachmen always change with the horses, and are usually as
dirty as the coach. The first was dressed like a very shabby
English baker; the second like a Russian peasant: for he wore a
loose purple camlet robe, with a fur collar, tied round his waist
with a parti-coloured worsted sash; grey trousers; light blue
gloves: and a cap of bearskin. It had by this time come on to
rain very heavily, and there was a cold damp mist besides, which
penetrated to the skin. I was glad to take advantage of a stoppage
and get down to stretch my legs, shake the water off my great-coat,
and swallow the usual anti-temperance recipe for keeping out the
cold.
When I mounted to my seat again, I observed a new parcel lying on
the coach roof, which I took to be a rather large fiddle in a brown
bag. In the course of a few miles, however, I discovered that it
had a glazed cap at one end and a pair of muddy shoes at the other
and further observation demonstrated it to be a small boy in a
snuff-coloured coat, with his arms quite pinioned to his sides, by
deep forcing into his pockets. He was, I presume, a relative or
friend of the coachman's, as he lay a-top of the luggage with his
face towards the rain; and except when a change of position brought
his shoes in contact with my hat, he appeared to be asleep. At
last, on some occasion of our stopping, this thing slowly upreared
itself to the height of three feet six, and fixing its eyes on me,
observed in piping accents, with a complaisant yawn, half quenched
in an obliging air of friendly patronage, 'Well now, stranger, I
guess you find this a'most like an English arternoon, hey?'
The scenery, which had been tame enough at first, was, for the last
ten or twelve miles, beautiful. Our road wound through the
pleasant valley of the Susquehanna; the river, dotted with
innumerable green islands, lay upon our right; and on the left, a
steep ascent, craggy with broken rock, and dark with pine trees.
The mist, wreathing itself into a hundred fantastic shapes, moved
solemnly upon the water; and the gloom of evening gave to all an
air of mystery and silence which greatly enhanced its natural
interest.
We crossed this river by a wooden bridge, roofed and covered in on
all sides, and nearly a mile in length. It was profoundly dark;
perplexed, with great beams, crossing and recrossing it at every
possible angle; and through the broad chinks and crevices in the
floor, the rapid river gleamed, far down below, like a legion of
eyes. We had no lamps; and as the horses stumbled and floundered
through this place, towards the distant speck of dying light, it
seemed interminable. I really could not at first persuade myself
as we rumbled heavily on, filling the bridge with hollow noises,
and I held down my head to save it from the rafters above, but that
I was in a painful dream; for I have often dreamed of toiling
through such places, and as often argued, even at the time, 'this
cannot be reality.'
At length, however, we emerged upon the streets of Harrisburg,
whose feeble lights, reflected dismally from the wet ground, did
not shine out upon a very cheerful city. We were soon established
in a snug hotel, which though smaller and far less splendid than
many we put up at, it raised above them all in my remembrance, by
having for its landlord the most obliging, considerate, and
gentlemanly person I ever had to deal with.
As we were not to proceed upon our journey until the afternoon, I
walked out, after breakfast the next morning, to look about me; and
was duly shown a model prison on the solitary system, just erected,
and as yet without an inmate; the trunk of an old tree to which
Harris, the first settler here (afterwards buried under it), was
tied by hostile Indians, with his funeral pile about him, when he
was saved by the timely appearance of a friendly party on the
opposite shore of the river; the local legislature (for there was
another of those bodies here again, in full debate); and the other
curiosities of the town.
I was very much interested in looking over a number of treaties
made from time to time with the poor Indians, signed by the
different chiefs at the period of their ratification, and preserved
in the office of the Secretary to the Commonwealth. These
signatures, traced of course by their own hands, are rough drawings
of the creatures or weapons they were called after. Thus, the
Great Turtle makes a crooked pen-and-ink outline of a great turtle;
the Buffalo sketches a buffalo; the War Hatchet sets a rough image
of that weapon for his mark. So with the Arrow, the Fish, the
Scalp, the Big Canoe, and all of them.
I could not but think - as I looked at these feeble and tremulous
productions of hands which could draw the longest arrow to the head
in a stout elk-horn bow, or split a bead or feather with a rifle-
ball - of Crabbe's musings over the Parish Register, and the
irregular scratches made with a pen, by men who would plough a
lengthy furrow straight from end to end. Nor could I help
bestowing many sorrowful thoughts upon the simple warriors whose
hands and hearts were set there, in all truth and honesty; and who
only learned in course of time from white men how to break their
faith, and quibble out of forms and bonds. I wonder, too, how many
times the credulous Big Turtle, or trusting Little Hatchet, had put
his mark to treaties which were falsely read to him; and had signed
away, he knew not what, until it went and cast him loose upon the
new possessors of the land, a savage indeed.
Our host announced, before our early dinner, that some members of
the legislative body proposed to do us the honour of calling. He
had kindly yielded up to us his wife's own little parlour, and when
I begged that he would show them in, I saw him look with painful
apprehension at its pretty carpet; though, being otherwise occupied
at the time, the cause of his uneasiness did not occur to me.
It certainly would have been more pleasant to all parties
concerned, and would not, I think, have compromised their
independence in any material degree, if some of these gentlemen had
not only yielded to the prejudice in favour of spittoons, but had
abandoned themselves, for the moment, even to the conventional
absurdity of pocket-handkerchiefs.
It still continued to rain heavily, and when we went down to the
Canal Boat (for that was the mode of conveyance by which we were to
proceed) after dinner, the weather was as unpromising and
obstinately wet as one would desire to see. Nor was the sight of
this canal boat, in which we were to spend three or four days, by
any means a cheerful one; as it involved some uneasy speculations
concerning the disposal of the passengers at night, and opened a
wide field of inquiry touching the other domestic arrangements of
the establishment, which was sufficiently disconcerting.
However, there it was - a barge with a little house in it, viewed
from the outside; and a caravan at a fair, viewed from within: the
gentlemen being accommodated, as the spectators usually are, in one
of those locomotive museums of penny wonders; and the ladies being
partitioned off by a red curtain, after the manner of the dwarfs
and giants in the same establishments, whose private lives are
passed in rather close exclusiveness.
We sat here, looking silently at the row of little tables, which
extended down both sides of the cabin, and listening to the rain as
it dripped and pattered on the boat, and plashed with a dismal
merriment in the water, until the arrival of the railway train, for
whose final contribution to our stock of passengers, our departure
was alone deferred. It brought a great many boxes, which were
bumped and tossed upon the roof, almost as painfully as if they had
been deposited on one's own head, without the intervention of a
porter's knot; and several damp gentlemen, whose clothes, on their
drawing round the stove, began to steam again. No doubt it would
have been a thought more comfortable if the driving rain, which now
poured down more soakingly than ever, had admitted of a window
being opened, or if our number had been something less than thirty;
but there was scarcely time to think as much, when a train of three
horses was attached to the tow-rope, the boy upon the leader
smacked his whip, the rudder creaked and groaned complainingly, and
we had begun our journey.
CHAPTER X - SOME FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE CANAL BOAT, ITS DOMESTIC
ECONOMY, AND ITS PASSENGERS. JOURNEY TO PITTSBURG ACROSS THE
ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. PITTSBURG
AS it continued to rain most perseveringly, we all remained below:
the damp gentlemen round the stove, gradually becoming mildewed by
the action of the fire; and the dry gentlemen lying at full length
upon the seats, or slumbering uneasily with their faces on the
tables, or walking up and down the cabin, which it was barely
possible for a man of the middle height to do, without making bald
places on his head by scraping it against the roof. At about six
o'clock, all the small tables were put together to form one long
table, and everybody sat down to tea, coffee, bread, butter,
salmon, shad, liver, steaks, potatoes, pickles, ham, chops, black-
puddings, and sausages.
'Will you try,' said my opposite neighbour, handing me a dish of
potatoes, broken up in milk and butter, 'will you try some of these
fixings?'
There are few words which perform such various duties as this word
'fix.' It is the Caleb Quotem of the American vocabulary. You
call upon a gentleman in a country town, and his help informs you
that he is 'fixing himself' just now, but will be down directly:
by which you are to understand that he is dressing. You inquire,
on board a steamboat, of a fellow-passenger, whether breakfast will
be ready soon, and he tells you he should think so, for when he was
last below, they were 'fixing the tables:' in other words, laying
the cloth. You beg a porter to collect your luggage, and he
entreats you not to be uneasy, for he'll 'fix it presently:' and if
you complain of indisposition, you are advised to have recourse to
Doctor So-and-so, who will 'fix you' in no time.
One night, I ordered a bottle of mulled wine at an hotel where I
was staying, and waited a long time for it; at length it was put
upon the table with an apology from the landlord that he feared it
wasn't 'fixed properly.' And I recollect once, at a stage-coach
dinner, overhearing a very stern gentleman demand of a waiter who
presented him with a plate of underdone roast-beef, 'whether he
called THAT, fixing God A'mighty's vittles?'
There is no doubt that the meal, at which the invitation was
tendered to me which has occasioned this digression, was disposed
of somewhat ravenously; and that the gentlemen thrust the broad-
bladed knives and the two-pronged forks further down their throats
than I ever saw the same weapons go before, except in the hands of
a skilful juggler: but no man sat down until the ladies were
seated; or omitted any little act of politeness which could
contribute to their comfort. Nor did I ever once, on any occasion,
anywhere, during my rambles in America, see a woman exposed to the
slightest act of rudeness, incivility, or even inattention.
By the time the meal was over, the rain, which seemed to have worn
itself out by coming down so fast, was nearly over too; and it
became feasible to go on deck: which was a great relief,
notwithstanding its being a very small deck, and being rendered
still smaller by the luggage, which was heaped together in the
middle under a tarpaulin covering; leaving, on either side, a path
so narrow, that it became a science to walk to and fro without
tumbling overboard into the canal. It was somewhat embarrassing at
first, too, to have to duck nimbly every five minutes whenever the
man at the helm cried 'Bridge!' and sometimes, when the cry was
'Low Bridge,' to lie down nearly flat. But custom familiarises one
to anything, and there were so many bridges that it took a very
short time to get used to this.
As night came on, and we drew in sight of the first range of hills,
which are the outposts of the Alleghany Mountains, the scenery,
which had been uninteresting hitherto, became more bold and
striking. The wet ground reeked and smoked, after the heavy fall
of rain, and the croaking of the frogs (whose noise in these parts
is almost incredible) sounded as though a million of fairy teams
with bells were travelling through the air, and keeping pace with
us. The night was cloudy yet, but moonlight too: and when we
crossed the Susquehanna river - over which there is an
extraordinary wooden bridge with two galleries, one above the
other, so that even there, two boat teams meeting, may pass without
confusion - it was wild and grand.
I have mentioned my having been in some uncertainty and doubt, at
first, relative to the sleeping arrangements on board this boat. I
remained in the same vague state of mind until ten o'clock or
thereabouts, when going below, I found suspended on either side of
the cabin, three long tiers of hanging bookshelves, designed
apparently for volumes of the small octavo size. Looking with
greater attention at these contrivances (wondering to find such
literary preparations in such a place), I descried on each shelf a
sort of microscopic sheet and blanket; then I began dimly to
comprehend that the passengers were the library, and that they were
to be arranged, edge-wise, on these shelves, till morning.
I was assisted to this conclusion by seeing some of them gathered
round the master of the boat, at one of the tables, drawing lots
with all the anxieties and passions of gamesters depicted in their
countenances; while others, with small pieces of cardboard in their
hands, were groping among the shelves in search of numbers
corresponding with those they had drawn. As soon as any gentleman
found his number, he took possession of it by immediately
undressing himself and crawling into bed. The rapidity with which
an agitated gambler subsided into a snoring slumberer, was one of
the most singular effects I have ever witnessed. As to the ladies,
they were already abed, behind the red curtain, which was carefully
drawn and pinned up the centre; though as every cough, or sneeze,
or whisper, behind this curtain, was perfectly audible before it,
we had still a lively consciousness of their society.
The politeness of the person in authority had secured to me a shelf
in a nook near this red curtain, in some degree removed from the
great body of sleepers: to which place I retired, with many
acknowledgments to him for his attention. I found it, on after-
measurement, just the width of an ordinary sheet of Bath post
letter-paper; and I was at first in some uncertainty as to the best
means of getting into it. But the shelf being a bottom one, I
finally determined on lying upon the floor, rolling gently in,
stopping immediately I touched the mattress, and remaining for the
night with that side uppermost, whatever it might be. Luckily, I
came upon my back at exactly the right moment. I was much alarmed
on looking upward, to see, by the shape of his half-yard of sacking
(which his weight had bent into an exceedingly tight bag), that
there was a very heavy gentleman above me, whom the slender cords
seemed quite incapable of holding; and I could not help reflecting
upon the grief of my wife and family in the event of his coming
down in the night. But as I could not have got up again without a
severe bodily struggle, which might have alarmed the ladies; and as
I had nowhere to go to, even if I had; I shut my eyes upon the
danger, and remained there.
One of two remarkable circumstances is indisputably a fact, with
reference to that class of society who travel in these boats.
Either they carry their restlessness to such a pitch that they
never sleep at all; or they expectorate in dreams, which would be a
remarkable mingling of the real and ideal. All night long, and
every night, on this canal, there was a perfect storm and tempest
of spitting; and once my coat, being in the very centre of the
hurricane sustained by five gentlemen (which moved vertically,
strictly carrying out Reid's Theory of the Law of Storms), I was
fain the next morning to lay it on the deck, and rub it down with
fair water before it was in a condition to be worn again.
Between five and six o'clock in the morning we got up, and some of
us went on deck, to give them an opportunity of taking the shelves
down; while others, the morning being very cold, crowded round the
rusty stove, cherishing the newly kindled fire, and filling the
grate with those voluntary contributions of which they had been so
liberal all night. The washing accommodations were primitive.
There was a tin ladle chained to the deck, with which every
gentleman who thought it necessary to cleanse himself (many were
superior to this weakness), fished the dirty water out of the
canal, and poured it into a tin basin, secured in like manner.
There was also a jack-towel. And, hanging up before a little
looking-glass in the bar, in the immediate vicinity of the bread
and cheese and biscuits, were a public comb and hair-brush.
At eight o'clock, the shelves being taken down and put away and the
tables joined together, everybody sat down to the tea, coffee,
bread, butter, salmon, shad, liver, steak, potatoes, pickles, ham,
chops, black-puddings, and sausages, all over again. Some were
fond of compounding this variety, and having it all on their plates
at once. As each gentleman got through his own personal amount of
tea, coffee, bread, butter, salmon, shad, liver, steak, potatoes,
pickles, ham, chops, black-puddings, and sausages, he rose up and
walked off. When everybody had done with everything, the fragments
were cleared away: and one of the waiters appearing anew in the
character of a barber, shaved such of the company as desired to be
shaved; while the remainder looked on, or yawned over their
newspapers. Dinner was breakfast again, without the tea and
coffee; and supper and breakfast were identical.
There was a man on board this boat, with a light fresh-coloured
face, and a pepper-and-salt suit of clothes, who was the most
inquisitive fellow that can possibly be imagined. He never spoke
otherwise than interrogatively. He was an embodied inquiry.
Sitting down or standing up, still or moving, walking the deck or
taking his meals, there he was, with a great note of interrogation
in each eye, two in his cocked ears, two more in his turned-up nose
and chin, at least half a dozen more about the corners of his
mouth, and the largest one of all in his hair, which was brushed
pertly off his forehead in a flaxen clump. Every button in his
clothes said, 'Eh? What's that? Did you speak? Say that again,
will you?' He was always wide awake, like the enchanted bride who
drove her husband frantic; always restless; always thirsting for
answers; perpetually seeking and never finding. There never was
such a curious man.
I wore a fur great-coat at that time, and before we were well clear
of the wharf, he questioned me concerning it, and its price, and
where I bought it, and when, and what fur it was, and what it
weighed, and what it cost. Then he took notice of my watch, and
asked me what THAT cost, and whether it was a French watch, and
where I got it, and how I got it, and whether I bought it or had it
given me, and how it went, and where the key-hole was, and when I
wound it, every night or every morning, and whether I ever forgot
to wind it at all, and if I did, what then? Where had I been to
last, and where was I going next, and where was I going after that,
and had I seen the President, and what did he say, and what did I
say, and what did he say when I had said that? Eh? Lor now! do
tell!
Finding that nothing would satisfy him, I evaded his questions
after the first score or two, and in particular pleaded ignorance
respecting the name of the fur whereof the coat was made. I am
unable to say whether this was the reason, but that coat fascinated
him afterwards; he usually kept close behind me as I walked, and
moved as I moved, that he might look at it the better; and he
frequently dived into narrow places after me at the risk of his
life, that he might have the satisfaction of passing his hand up
the back, and rubbing it the wrong way.
We had another odd specimen on board, of a different kind. This
was a thin-faced, spare-figured man of middle age and stature,
dressed in a dusty drabbish-coloured suit, such as I never saw
before. He was perfectly quiet during the first part of the
journey: indeed I don't remember having so much as seen him until
he was brought out by circumstances, as great men often are. The
conjunction of events which made him famous, happened, briefly,
thus.
The canal extends to the foot of the mountain, and there, of
course, it stops; the passengers being conveyed across it by land
carriage, and taken on afterwards by another canal boat, the
counterpart of the first, which awaits them on the other side.
There are two canal lines of passage-boats; one is called The
Express, and one (a cheaper one) The Pioneer. The Pioneer gets
first to the mountain, and waits for the Express people to come up;
both sets of passengers being conveyed across it at the same time.
We were the Express company; but when we had crossed the mountain,
and had come to the second boat, the proprietors took it into their
beads to draft all the Pioneers into it likewise, so that we were
five-and-forty at least, and the accession of passengers was not at
all of that kind which improved the prospect of sleeping at night.
Our people grumbled at this, as people do in such cases; but
suffered the boat to be towed off with the whole freight aboard
nevertheless; and away we went down the canal. At home, I should
have protested lustily, but being a foreigner here, I held my
peace. Not so this passenger. He cleft a path among the people on
deck (we were nearly all on deck), and without addressing anybody
whomsoever, soliloquised as follows:
'This may suit YOU, this may, but it don't suit ME. This may be
all very well with Down Easters, and men of Boston raising, but it
won't suit my figure nohow; and no two ways about THAT; and so I
tell you. Now! I'm from the brown forests of Mississippi, I am,
and when the sun shines on me, it does shine - a little. It don't
glimmer where I live, the sun don't. No. I'm a brown forester, I
am. I an't a Johnny Cake. There are no smooth skins where I live.
We're rough men there. Rather. If Down Easters and men of Boston
raising like this, I'm glad of it, but I'm none of that raising nor
of that breed. No. This company wants a little fixing, IT does.
I'm the wrong sort of man for 'em, I am. They won't like me, THEY
won't. This is piling of it up, a little too mountainous, this
is.' At the end of every one of these short sentences he turned
upon his heel, and walked the other way; checking himself abruptly
when he had finished another short sentence, and turning back
again.
It is impossible for me to say what terrific meaning was hidden in
the words of this brown forester, but I know that the other
passengers looked on in a sort of admiring horror, and that
presently the boat was put back to the wharf, and as many of the
Pioneers as could be coaxed or bullied into going away, were got
rid of.
When we started again, some of the boldest spirits on board, made
bold to say to the obvious occasion of this improvement in our
prospects, 'Much obliged to you, sir;' whereunto the brown forester
(waving his hand, and still walking up and down as before),
replied, 'No you an't. You're none o' my raising. You may act for
yourselves, YOU may. I have pinted out the way. Down Easters and
Johnny Cakes can follow if they please. I an't a Johnny Cake, I
an't. I am from the brown forests of the Mississippi, I am' - and
so on, as before. He was unanimously voted one of the tables for
his bed at night - there is a great contest for the tables - in
consideration for his public services: and he had the warmest
corner by the stove throughout the rest of the journey. But I
never could find out that he did anything except sit there; nor did
I hear him speak again until, in the midst of the bustle and
turmoil of getting the luggage ashore in the dark at Pittsburg, I
stumbled over him as he sat smoking a cigar on the cabin steps, and
heard him muttering to himself, with a short laugh of defiance, 'I
an't a Johnny Cake, - I an't. I'm from the brown forests of the
Mississippi, I am, damme!' I am inclined to argue from this, that
he had never left off saying so; but I could not make an affidavit
of that part of the story, if required to do so by my Queen and
Country.
As we have not reached Pittsburg yet, however, in the order of our
narrative, I may go on to remark that breakfast was perhaps the
least desirable meal of the day, as in addition to the many savoury
odours arising from the eatables already mentioned, there were
whiffs of gin, whiskey, brandy, and rum, from the little bar hard
by, and a decided seasoning of stale tobacco. Many of the
gentlemen passengers were far from particular in respect of their
linen, which was in some cases as yellow as the little rivulets
that had trickled from the corners of their mouths in chewing, and
dried there. Nor was the atmosphere quite free from zephyr
whisperings of the thirty beds which had just been cleared away,
and of which we were further and more pressingly reminded by the
occasional appearance on the table-cloth of a kind of Game, not
mentioned in the Bill of Fare.
And yet despite these oddities - and even they had, for me at
least, a humour of their own - there was much in this mode of
travelling which I heartily enjoyed at the time, and look back upon
with great pleasure. Even the running up, bare-necked, at five
o'clock in the morning, from the tainted cabin to the dirty deck;
scooping up the icy water, plunging one's head into it, and drawing
it out, all fresh and glowing with the cold; was a good thing. The
fast, brisk walk upon the towing-path, between that time and
breakfast, when every vein and artery seemed to tingle with health;
the exquisite beauty of the opening day, when light came gleaming
off from everything; the lazy motion of the boat, when one lay idly
on the deck, looking through, rather than at, the deep blue sky;
the gliding on at night, so noiselessly, past frowning hills,
sullen with dark trees, and sometimes angry in one red, burning
spot high up, where unseen men lay crouching round a fire; the
shining out of the bright stars undisturbed by noise of wheels or
steam, or any other sound than the limpid rippling of the water as
the boat went on: all these were pure delights.
Then there were new settlements and detached log-cabins and frame-
houses, full of interest for strangers from an old country: cabins
with simple ovens, outside, made of clay; and lodgings for the pigs
nearly as good as many of the human quarters; broken windows,
patched with worn-out hats, old clothes, old boards, fragments of
blankets and paper; and home-made dressers standing in the open air
without the door, whereon was ranged the household store, not hard
to count, of earthen jars and pots. The eye was pained to see the
stumps of great trees thickly strewn in every field of wheat, and
seldom to lose the eternal swamp and dull morass, with hundreds of
rotten trunks and twisted branches steeped in its unwholesome
water. It was quite sad and oppressive, to come upon great tracts
where settlers had been burning down the trees, and where their
wounded bodies lay about, like those of murdered creatures, while
here and there some charred and blackened giant reared aloft two
withered arms, and seemed to call down curses on his foes.
Sometimes, at night, the way wound through some lonely gorge, like
a mountain pass in Scotland, shining and coldly glittering in the
light of the moon, and so closed in by high steep hills all round,
that there seemed to be no egress save through the narrower path by
which we had come, until one rugged hill-side seemed to open, and
shutting out the moonlight as we passed into its gloomy throat,
wrapped our new course in shade and darkness.
We had left Harrisburg on Friday. On Sunday morning we arrived at
the foot of the mountain, which is crossed by railroad. There are
ten inclined planes; five ascending, and five descending; the
carriages are dragged up the former, and let slowly down the
latter, by means of stationary engines; the comparatively level
spaces between, being traversed, sometimes by horse, and sometimes
by engine power, as the case demands. Occasionally the rails are
laid upon the extreme verge of a giddy precipice; and looking from
the carriage window, the traveller gazes sheer down, without a
stone or scrap of fence between, into the mountain depths below.
The journey is very carefully made, however; only two carriages
travelling together; and while proper precautions are taken, is not
to be dreaded for its dangers.
It was very pretty travelling thus, at a rapid pace along the
heights of the mountain in a keen wind, to look down into a valley
full of light and softness; catching glimpses, through the tree-
tops, of scattered cabins; children running to the doors; dogs
bursting out to bark, whom we could see without hearing: terrified
pigs scampering homewards; families sitting out in their rude
gardens; cows gazing upward with a stupid indifference; men in
their shirt-sleeves looking on at their unfinished houses, planning
out to-morrow's work; and we riding onward, high above them, like a
whirlwind. It was amusing, too, when we had dined, and rattled
down a steep pass, having no other moving power than the weight of
the carriages themselves, to see the engine released, long after
us, come buzzing down alone, like a great insect, its back of green
and gold so shining in the sun, that if it had spread a pair of
wings and soared away, no one would have had occasion, as I
fancied, for the least surprise. But it stopped short of us in a
very business-like manner when we reached the canal: and, before
we left the wharf, went panting up this hill again, with the
passengers who had waited our arrival for the means of traversing
the road by which we had come.
On the Monday evening, furnace fires and clanking hammers on the
banks of the canal, warned us that we approached the termination of
this part of our journey. After going through another dreamy place
- a long aqueduct across the Alleghany River, which was stranger
than the bridge at Harrisburg, being a vast, low, wooden chamber
full of water - we emerged upon that ugly confusion of backs of
buildings and crazy galleries and stairs, which always abuts on
water, whether it be river, sea, canal, or ditch: and were at
Pittsburg.
Pittsburg is like Birmingham in England; at least its townspeople
say so. Setting aside the streets, the shops, the houses, waggons,
factories, public buildings, and population, perhaps it may be. It
certainly has a great quantity of smoke hanging about it, and is
famous for its iron-works. Besides the prison to which I have
already referred, this town contains a pretty arsenal and other
institutions. It is very beautifully situated on the Alleghany
River, over which there are two bridges; and the villas of the
wealthier citizens sprinkled about the high grounds in the
neighbourhood, are pretty enough. We lodged at a most excellent
hotel, and were admirably served. As usual it was full of
boarders, was very large, and had a broad colonnade to every story
of the house.
We tarried here three days. Our next point was Cincinnati: and as
this was a steamboat journey, and western steamboats usually blow
up one or two a week in the season, it was advisable to collect
opinions in reference to the comparative safety of the vessels
bound that way, then lying in the river. One called the Messenger
was the best recommended. She had been advertised to start
positively, every day for a fortnight or so, and had not gone yet,
nor did her captain seem to have any very fixed intention on the
subject. But this is the custom: for if the law were to bind down
a free and independent citizen to keep his word with the public,
what would become of the liberty of the subject? Besides, it is in
the way of trade. And if passengers be decoyed in the way of
trade, and people be inconvenienced in the way of trade, what man,
who is a sharp tradesman himself, shall say, 'We must put a stop to
this?'
Impressed by the deep solemnity of the public announcement, I
(being then ignorant of these usages) was for hurrying on board in
a breathless state, immediately; but receiving private and
confidential information that the boat would certainly not start
until Friday, April the First, we made ourselves very comfortable
in the mean while, and went on board at noon that day.
CHAPTER XI - FROM PITTSBURG TO CINCINNATI IN A WESTERN STEAMBOAT.
CINCINNATI
THE Messenger was one among a crowd of high-pressure steamboats,
clustered together by a wharf-side, which, looked down upon from
the rising ground that forms the landing-place, and backed by the
lofty bank on the opposite side of the river, appeared no larger
than so many floating models. She had some forty passengers on
board, exclusive of the poorer persons on the lower deck; and in
half an hour, or less, proceeded on her way.
We had, for ourselves, a tiny state-room with two berths in it,
opening out of the ladies' cabin. There was, undoubtedly,
something satisfactory in this 'location,' inasmuch as it was in
the stern, and we had been a great many times very gravely
recommended to keep as far aft as possible, 'because the steamboats
generally blew up forward.' Nor was this an unnecessary caution,
as the occurrence and circumstances of more than one such fatality
during our stay sufficiently testified. Apart from this source of
self-congratulation, it was an unspeakable relief to have any
place, no matter how confined, where one could be alone: and as
the row of little chambers of which this was one, had each a second
glass-door besides that in the ladies' cabin, which opened on a
narrow gallery outside the vessel, where the other passengers
seldom came, and where one could sit in peace and gaze upon the
shifting prospect, we took possession of our new quarters with much
pleasure.
If the native packets I have already described be unlike anything
we are in the habit of seeing on water, these western vessels are
still more foreign to all the ideas we are accustomed to entertain
of boats. I hardly know what to liken them to, or how to describe
them.
In the first place, they have no mast, cordage, tackle, rigging, or
other such boat-like gear; nor have they anything in their shape at
all calculated to remind one of a boat's head, stem, sides, or
keel. Except that they are in the water, and display a couple of
paddle-boxes, they might be intended, for anything that appears to
the contrary, to perform some unknown service, high and dry, upon a
mountain top. There is no visible deck, even: nothing but a long,
black, ugly roof covered with burnt-out feathery sparks; above
which tower two iron chimneys, and a hoarse escape valve, and a
glass steerage-house. Then, in order as the eye descends towards
the water, are the sides, and doors, and windows of the state-
rooms, jumbled as oddly together as though they formed a small
street, built by the varying tastes of a dozen men: the whole is
supported on beams and pillars resting on a dirty barge, but a few
inches above the water's edge: and in the narrow space between
this upper structure and this barge's deck, are the furnace fires
and machinery, open at the sides to every wind that blows, and
every storm of rain it drives along its path.
Passing one of these boats at night, and seeing the great body of
fire, exposed as I have just described, that rages and roars
beneath the frail pile of painted wood: the machinery, not warded
off or guarded in any way, but doing its work in the midst of the
crowd of idlers and emigrants and children, who throng the lower
deck: under the management, too, of reckless men whose
acquaintance with its mysteries may have been of six months'
standing: one feels directly that the wonder is, not that there
should be so many fatal accidents, but that any journey should be
safely made.
Within, there is one long narrow cabin, the whole length of the
boat; from which the state-rooms open, on both sides. A small
portion of it at the stern is partitioned off for the ladies; and
the bar is at the opposite extreme. There is a long table down the
centre, and at either end a stove. The washing apparatus is
forward, on the deck. It is a little better than on board the
canal boat, but not much. In all modes of travelling, the American
customs, with reference to the means of personal cleanliness and
wholesome ablution, are extremely negligent and filthy; and I
strongly incline to the belief that a considerable amount of
illness is referable to this cause.
We are to be on board the Messenger three days: arriving at
Cincinnati (barring accidents) on Monday morning. There are three
meals a day. Breakfast at seven, dinner at half-past twelve,
supper about six. At each, there are a great many small dishes and
plates upon the table, with very little in them; so that although
there is every appearance of a mighty 'spread,' there is seldom
really more than a joint: except for those who fancy slices of
beet-root, shreds of dried beef, complicated entanglements of
yellow pickle; maize, Indian corn, apple-sauce, and pumpkin.
Some people fancy all these little dainties together (and sweet
preserves beside), by way of relish to their roast pig. They are
generally those dyspeptic ladies and gentlemen who eat unheard-of
quantities of hot corn bread (almost as good for the digestion as a
kneaded pin-cushion), for breakfast, and for supper. Those who do
not observe this custom, and who help themselves several times
instead, usually suck their knives and forks meditatively, until
they have decided what to take next: then pull them out of their
mouths: put them in the dish; help themselves; and fall to work
again. At dinner, there is nothing to drink upon the table, but
great jugs full of cold water. Nobody says anything, at any meal,
to anybody. All the passengers are very dismal, and seem to have
tremendous secrets weighing on their minds. There is no
conversation, no laughter, no cheerfulness, no sociality, except in
spitting; and that is done in silent fellowship round the stove,
when the meal is over. Every man sits down, dull and languid;
swallows his fare as if breakfasts, dinners, and suppers, were
necessities of nature never to be coupled with recreation or
enjoyment; and having bolted his food in a gloomy silence, bolts
himself, in the same state. But for these animal observances, you
might suppose the whole male portion of the company to be the
melancholy ghosts of departed book-keepers, who had fallen dead at
the desk: such is their weary air of business and calculation.
Undertakers on duty would be sprightly beside them; and a collation
of funeral-baked meats, in comparison with these meals, would be a
sparkling festivity.
The people are all alike, too. There is no diversity of character.
They travel about on the same errands, say and do the same things
in exactly the same manner, and follow in the same dull cheerless
round. All down the long table, there is scarcely a man who is in
anything different from his neighbour. It is quite a relief to
have, sitting opposite, that little girl of fifteen with the
loquacious chin: who, to do her justice, acts up to it, and fully
identifies nature's handwriting, for of all the small chatterboxes
that ever invaded the repose of drowsy ladies' cabin, she is the
first and foremost. The beautiful girl, who sits a little beyond
her - farther down the table there - married the young man with the
dark whiskers, who sits beyond HER, only last month. They are
going to settle in the very Far West, where he has lived four
years, but where she has never been. They were both overturned in
a stage-coach the other day (a bad omen anywhere else, where
overturns are not so common), and his head, which bears the marks
of a recent wound, is bound up still. She was hurt too, at the
same time, and lay insensible for some days; bright as her eyes
are, now.
Further down still, sits a man who is going some miles beyond their
place of destination, to 'improve' a newly-discovered copper mine.
He carries the village - that is to be - with him: a few frame
cottages, and an apparatus for smelting the copper. He carries its
people too. They are partly American and partly Irish, and herd
together on the lower deck; where they amused themselves last
evening till the night was pretty far advanced, by alternately
firing off pistols and singing hymns.
They, and the very few who have been left at table twenty minutes,
rise, and go away. We do so too; and passing through our little
state-room, resume our seats in the quiet gallery without.
A fine broad river always, but in some parts much wider than in
others: and then there is usually a green island, covered with
trees, dividing it into two streams. Occasionally, we stop for a
few minutes, maybe to take in wood, maybe for passengers, at some
small town or village (I ought to say city, every place is a city
here); but the banks are for the most part deep solitudes,
overgrown with trees, which, hereabouts, are already in leaf and
very green. For miles, and miles, and miles, these solitudes are
unbroken by any sign of human life or trace of human footstep; nor
is anything seen to move about them but the blue jay, whose colour
is so bright, and yet so delicate, that it looks like a flying
flower. At lengthened intervals a log cabin, with its little space
of cleared land about it, nestles under a rising ground, and sends
its thread of blue smoke curling up into the sky. It stands in the
corner of the poor field of wheat, which is full of great unsightly
stumps, like earthy butchers'-blocks. Sometimes the ground is only
just now cleared: the felled trees lying yet upon the soil: and
the log-house only this morning begun. As we pass this clearing,
the settler leans upon his axe or hammer, and looks wistfully at
the people from the world. The children creep out of the temporary
hut, which is like a gipsy tent upon the ground, and clap their
hands and shout. The dog only glances round at us, and then looks
up into his master's face again, as if he were rendered uneasy by
any suspension of the common business, and had nothing more to do
with pleasurers. And still there is the same, eternal foreground.
The river has washed away its banks, and stately trees have fallen
down into the stream. Some have been there so long, that they are
mere dry, grizzly skeletons. Some have just toppled over, and
having earth yet about their roots, are bathing their green heads
in the river, and putting forth new shoots and branches. Some are
almost sliding down, as you look at them. And some were drowned so
long ago, that their bleached arms start out from the middle of the
current, and seem to try to grasp the boat, and drag it under
water.
Through such a scene as this, the unwieldy machine takes its
hoarse, sullen way: venting, at every revolution of the paddles, a
loud high-pressure blast; enough, one would think, to waken up the
host of Indians who lie buried in a great mound yonder: so old,
that mighty oaks and other forest trees have struck their roots
into its earth; and so high, that it is a hill, even among the
hills that Nature planted round it. The very river, as though it
shared one's feelings of compassion for the extinct tribes who
lived so pleasantly here, in their blessed ignorance of white
existence, hundreds of years ago, steals out of its way to ripple
near this mound: and there are few places where the Ohio sparkles
more brightly than in the Big Grave Creek.
All this I see as I sit in the little stern-gallery mentioned just
now. Evening slowly steals upon the landscape and changes it
before me, when we stop to set some emigrants ashore.
Five men, as many women, and a little girl. All their worldly
goods are a bag, a large chest and an old chair: one, old, high-
backed, rush-bottomed chair: a solitary settler in itself. They
are rowed ashore in the boat, while the vessel stands a little off
awaiting its return, the water being shallow. They are landed at
the foot of a high bank, on the summit of which are a few log
cabins, attainable only by a long winding path. It is growing
dusk; but the sun is very red, and shines in the water and on some
of the tree-tops, like fire.
The men get out of the boat first; help out the women; take out the
bag, the chest, the chair; bid the rowers 'good-bye;' and shove the
boat off for them. At the first plash of the oars in the water,
the oldest woman of the party sits down in the old chair, close to
the water's edge, without speaking a word. None of the others sit
down, though the chest is large enough for many seats. They all
stand where they landed, as if stricken into stone; and look after
the boat. So they remain, quite still and silent: the old woman
and her old chair, in the centre the bag and chest upon the shore,
without anybody heeding them all eyes fixed upon the boat. It
comes alongside, is made fast, the men jump on board, the engine is
put in motion, and we go hoarsely on again. There they stand yet,
without the motion of a hand. I can see them through my glass,
when, in the distance and increasing darkness, they are mere specks
to the eye: lingering there still: the old woman in the old
chair, and all the rest about her: not stirring in the least
degree. And thus I slowly lose them.
The night is dark, and we proceed within the shadow of the wooded
bank, which makes it darker. After gliding past the sombre maze of
boughs for a long time, we come upon an open space where the tall
trees are burning. The shape of every branch and twig is expressed
in a deep red glow, and as the light wind stirs and ruffles it,
they seem to vegetate in fire. It is such a sight as we read of in
legends of enchanted forests: saving that it is sad to see these
noble works wasting away so awfully, alone; and to think how many
years must come and go before the magic that created them will rear
their like upon this ground again. But the time will come; and
when, in their changed ashes, the growth of centuries unborn has
struck its roots, the restless men of distant ages will repair to
these again unpeopled solitudes; and their fellows, in cities far
away, that slumber now, perhaps, beneath the rolling sea, will read
in language strange to any ears in being now, but very old to them,
of primeval forests where the axe was never heard, and where the
jungled ground was never trodden by a human foot.
Midnight and sleep blot out these scenes and thoughts: and when
the morning shines again, it gilds the house-tops of a lively city,
before whose broad paved wharf the boat is moored; with other
boats, and flags, and moving wheels, and hum of men around it; as
though there were not a solitary or silent rood of ground within
the compass of a thousand miles.
Cincinnati is a beautiful city; cheerful, thriving, and animated.
I have not often seen a place that commends itself so favourably
and pleasantly to a stranger at the first glance as this does:
with its clean houses of red and white, its well-paved roads, and
foot-ways of bright tile. Nor does it become less prepossessing on
a closer acquaintance. The streets are broad and airy, the shops
extremely good, the private residences remarkable for their
elegance and neatness. There is something of invention and fancy
in the varying styles of these latter erections, which, after the
dull company of the steamboat, is perfectly delightful, as
conveying an assurance that there are such qualities still in
existence. The disposition to ornament these pretty villas and
render them attractive, leads to the culture of trees and flowers,
and the laying out of well-kept gardens, the sight of which, to
those who walk along the streets, is inexpressibly refreshing and
agreeable. I was quite charmed with the appearance of the town,
and its adjoining suburb of Mount Auburn: from which the city,
lying in an amphitheatre of hills, forms a picture of remarkable
beauty, and is seen to great advantage.
There happened to be a great Temperance Convention held here on the
day after our arrival; and as the order of march brought the
procession under the windows of the hotel in which we lodged, when
they started in the morning, I had a good opportunity of seeing it.
It comprised several thousand men; the members of various
'Washington Auxiliary Temperance Societies;' and was marshalled by
officers on horseback, who cantered briskly up and down the line,
with scarves and ribbons of bright colours fluttering out behind
them gaily. There were bands of music too, and banners out of
number: and it was a fresh, holiday-looking concourse altogether.
I was particularly pleased to see the Irishmen, who formed a
distinct society among themselves, and mustered very strong with
their green scarves; carrying their national Harp and their
Portrait of Father Mathew, high above the people's heads. They
looked as jolly and good-humoured as ever; and, working (here) the
hardest for their living and doing any kind of sturdy labour that
came in their way, were the most independent fellows there, I
thought.
The banners were very well painted, and flaunted down the street
famously. There was the smiting of the rock, and the gushing forth
of the waters; and there was a temperate man with 'considerable of
a hatchet' (as the standard-bearer would probably have said),
aiming a deadly blow at a serpent which was apparently about to
spring upon him from the top of a barrel of spirits. But the chief
feature of this part of the show was a huge allegorical device,
borne among the ship-carpenters, on one side whereof the steamboat
Alcohol was represented bursting her boiler and exploding with a
great crash, while upon the other, the good ship Temperance sailed
away with a fair wind, to the heart's content of the captain, crew,
and passengers.
After going round the town, the procession repaired to a certain
appointed place, where, as the printed programme set forth, it
would be received by the children of the different free schools,
'singing Temperance Songs.' I was prevented from getting there, in
time to hear these Little Warblers, or to report upon this novel
kind of vocal entertainment: novel, at least, to me: but I found
in a large open space, each society gathered round its own banners,
and listening in silent attention to its own orator. The speeches,
judging from the little I could hear of them, were certainly
adapted to the occasion, as having that degree of relationship to
cold water which wet blankets may claim: but the main thing was
the conduct and appearance of the audience throughout the day; and
that was admirable and full of promise.
Cincinnati is honourably famous for its free schools, of which it
has so many that no person's child among its population can, by
possibility, want the means of education, which are extended, upon
an average, to four thousand pupils, annually. I was only present
in one of these establishments during the hours of instruction. In
the boys' department, which was full of little urchins (varying in
their ages, I should say, from six years old to ten or twelve), the
master offered to institute an extemporary examination of the
pupils in algebra; a proposal, which, as I was by no means
confident of my ability to detect mistakes in that science, I
declined with some alarm. In the girls' school, reading was
proposed; and as I felt tolerably equal to that art, I expressed my
willingness to hear a class. Books were distributed accordingly,
and some half-dozen girls relieved each other in reading paragraphs
from English History. But it seemed to be a dry compilation,
infinitely above their powers; and when they had blundered through
three or four dreary passages concerning the Treaty of Amiens, and
other thrilling topics of the same nature (obviously without
comprehending ten words), I expressed myself quite satisfied. It
is very possible that they only mounted to this exalted stave in
the Ladder of Learning for the astonishment of a visitor; and that
at other times they keep upon its lower rounds; but I should have
been much better pleased and satisfied if I had heard them
exercised in simpler lessons, which they understood.
As in every other place I visited, the judges here were gentlemen
of high character and attainments. I was in one of the courts for
a few minutes, and found it like those to which I have already
referred. A nuisance cause was trying; there were not many
spectators; and the witnesses, counsel, and jury, formed a sort of
family circle, sufficiently jocose and snug.
The society with which I mingled, was intelligent, courteous, and
agreeable. The inhabitants of Cincinnati are proud of their city
as one of the most interesting in America: and with good reason:
for beautiful and thriving as it is now, and containing, as it
does, a population of fifty thousand souls, but two-and-fifty years
have passed away since the ground on which it stands (bought at
that time for a few dollars) was a wild wood, and its citizens were
but a handful of dwellers in scattered log huts upon the river's
shore.
CHAPTER XII - FROM CINCINNATI TO LOUISVILLE IN ANOTHER WESTERN
STEAMBOAT; AND FROM LOUISVILLE TO ST. LOUIS IN ANOTHER. ST. LOUIS
LEAVING Cincinnati at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, we embarked
for Louisville in the Pike steamboat, which, carrying the mails,
was a packet of a much better class than that in which we had come
from Pittsburg. As this passage does not occupy more than twelve
or thirteen hours, we arranged to go ashore that night: not
coveting the distinction of sleeping in a state-room, when it was
possible to sleep anywhere else.
There chanced to be on board this boat, in addition to the usual
dreary crowd of passengers, one Pitchlynn, a chief of the Choctaw
tribe of Indians, who SENT IN HIS CARD to me, and with whom I had
the pleasure of a long conversation.
He spoke English perfectly well, though he had not begun to learn
the language, he told me, until he was a young man grown. He had
read many books; and Scott's poetry appeared to have left a strong
impression on his mind: especially the opening of The Lady of the
Lake, and the great battle scene in Marmion, in which, no doubt
from the congeniality of the subjects to his own pursuits and
tastes, he had great interest and delight. He appeared to
understand correctly all he had read; and whatever fiction had
enlisted his sympathy in its belief, had done so keenly and
earnestly. I might almost say fiercely. He was dressed in our
ordinary everyday costume, which hung about his fine figure
loosely, and with indifferent grace. On my telling him that I
regretted not to see him in his own attire, he threw up his right
arm, for a moment, as though he were brandishing some heavy weapon,
and answered, as he let it fall again, that his race were losing
many things besides their dress, and would soon be seen upon the
earth no more: but he wore it at home, he added proudly.
He told me that he had been away from his home, west of the
Mississippi, seventeen months: and was now returning. He had been
chiefly at Washington on some negotiations pending between his
Tribe and the Government: which were not settled yet (he said in a
melancholy way), and he feared never would be: for what could a
few poor Indians do, against such well-skilled men of business as
the whites? He had no love for Washington; tired of towns and
cities very soon; and longed for the Forest and the Prairie.
I asked him what he thought of Congress? He answered, with a
smile, that it wanted dignity, in an Indian's eyes.
He would very much like, he said, to see England before he died;
and spoke with much interest about the great things to be seen
there. When I told him of that chamber in the British Museum
wherein are preserved household memorials of a race that ceased to
be, thousands of years ago, he was very attentive, and it was not
hard to see that he had a reference in his mind to the gradual
fading away of his own people.
This led us to speak of Mr. Catlin's gallery, which he praised
highly: observing that his own portrait was among the collection,
and that all the likenesses were 'elegant.' Mr. Cooper, he said,
had painted the Red Man well; and so would I, he knew, if I would
go home with him and hunt buffaloes, which he was quite anxious I
should do. When I told him that supposing I went, I should not be
very likely to damage the buffaloes much, he took it as a great
joke and laughed heartily.
He was a remarkably handsome man; some years past forty, I should
judge; with long black hair, an aquiline nose, broad cheek-bones, a
sunburnt complexion, and a very bright, keen, dark, and piercing
eye. There were but twenty thousand of the Choctaws left, he said,
and their number was decreasing every day. A few of his brother
chiefs had been obliged to become civilised, and to make themselves
acquainted with what the whites knew, for it was their only chance
of existence. But they were not many; and the rest were as they
always had been. He dwelt on this: and said several times that
unless they tried to assimilate themselves to their conquerors,
they must be swept away before the strides of civilised society.
When we shook hands at parting, I told him he must come to England,
as he longed to see the land so much: that I should hope to see
him there, one day: and that I could promise him he would be well
received and kindly treated. He was evidently pleased by this
assurance, though he rejoined with a good-humoured smile and an
arch shake of his head, that the English used to be very fond of
the Red Men when they wanted their help, but had not cared much for
them, since.
He took his leave; as stately and complete a gentleman of Nature's
making, as ever I beheld; and moved among the people in the boat,
another kind of being. He sent me a lithographed portrait of
himself soon afterwards; very like, though scarcely handsome
enough; which I have carefully preserved in memory of our brief
acquaintance.
There was nothing very interesting in the scenery of this day's
journey, which brought us at midnight to Louisville. We slept at
the Galt House; a splendid hotel; and were as handsomely lodged as
though we had been in Paris, rather than hundreds of miles beyond
the Alleghanies.
The city presenting no objects of sufficient interest to detain us
on our way, we resolved to proceed next day by another steamboat,
the Fulton, and to join it, about noon, at a suburb called
Portland, where it would be delayed some time in passing through a
canal.
The interval, after breakfast, we devoted to riding through the
town, which is regular and cheerful: the streets being laid out at
right angles, and planted with young trees. The buildings are
smoky and blackened, from the use of bituminous coal, but an
Englishman is well used to that appearance, and indisposed to
quarrel with it. There did not appear to be much business
stirring; and some unfinished buildings and improvements seemed to
intimate that the city had been overbuilt in the ardour of 'going-
a-head,' and was suffering under the re-action consequent upon such
feverish forcing of its powers.
On our way to Portland, we passed a 'Magistrate's office,' which
amused me, as looking far more like a dame school than any police
establishment: for this awful Institution was nothing but a little
lazy, good-for-nothing front parlour, open to the street; wherein
two or three figures (I presume the magistrate and his myrmidons)
were basking in the sunshine, the very effigies of languor and
repose. It was a perfect picture of justice retired from business
for want of customers; her sword and scales sold off; napping
comfortably with her legs upon the table.
Here, as elsewhere in these parts, the road was perfectly alive
with pigs of all ages; lying about in every direction, fast
asleep.; or grunting along in quest of hidden dainties. I had
always a sneaking kindness for these odd animals, and found a
constant source of amusement, when all others failed, in watching
their proceedings. As we were riding along this morning, I
observed a little incident between two youthful pigs, which was so
very human as to be inexpressibly comical and grotesque at the
time, though I dare say, in telling, it is tame enough.
One young gentleman (a very delicate porker with several straws
sticking about his nose, betokening recent investigations in a
dung-hill) was walking deliberately on, profoundly thinking, when
suddenly his brother, who was lying in a miry hole unseen by him,
rose up immediately before his startled eyes, ghostly with damp
mud. Never was pig's whole mass of blood so turned. He started
back at least three feet, gazed for a moment, and then shot off as
hard as he could go: his excessively little tail vibrating with
speed and terror like a distracted pendulum. But before he had
gone very far, he began to reason with himself as to the nature of
this frightful appearance; and as he reasoned, he relaxed his speed
by gradual degrees; until at last he stopped, and faced about.
There was his brother, with the mud upon him glazing in the sun,
yet staring out of the very same hole, perfectly amazed at his
proceedings! He was no sooner assured of this; and he assured
himself so carefully that one may almost say he shaded his eyes
with his hand to see the better; than he came back at a round trot,
pounced upon him, and summarily took off a piece of his tail; as a
caution to him to be careful what he was about for the future, and
never to play tricks with his family any more.
We found the steamboat in the canal, waiting for the slow process
of getting through the lock, and went on board, where we shortly
afterwards had a new kind of visitor in the person of a certain
Kentucky Giant whose name is Porter, and who is of the moderate
height of seven feet eight inches, in his stockings.
There never was a race of people who so completely gave the lie to
history as these giants, or whom all the chroniclers have so
cruelly libelled. Instead of roaring and ravaging about the world,
constantly catering for their cannibal larders, and perpetually
going to market in an unlawful manner, they are the meekest people
in any man's acquaintance: rather inclining to milk and vegetable
diet, and bearing anything for a quiet life. So decidedly are
amiability and mildness their characteristics, that I confess I
look upon that youth who distinguished himself by the slaughter of
these inoffensive persons, as a false-hearted brigand, who,
pretending to philanthropic motives, was secretly influenced only
by the wealth stored up within their castles, and the hope of
plunder. And I lean the more to this opinion from finding that
even the historian of those exploits, with all his partiality for
his hero, is fain to admit that the slaughtered monsters in
question were of a very innocent and simple turn; extremely
guileless and ready of belief; lending a credulous ear to the most
improbable tales; suffering themselves to be easily entrapped into
pits; and even (as in the case of the Welsh Giant) with an excess
of the hospitable politeness of a landlord, ripping themselves
open, rather than hint at the possibility of their guests being
versed in the vagabond arts of sleight-of-hand and hocus-pocus.
The Kentucky Giant was but another illustration of the truth of
this position. He had a weakness in the region of the knees, and a
trustfulness in his long face, which appealed even to five-feet
nine for encouragement and support. He was only twenty-five years
old, he said, and had grown recently, for it had been found
necessary to make an addition to the legs of his inexpressibles.
At fifteen he was a short boy, and in those days his English father
and his Irish mother had rather snubbed him, as being too small of
stature to sustain the credit of the family. He added that his
health had not been good, though it was better now; but short
people are not wanting who whisper that he drinks too hard.
I understand he drives a hackney-coach, though how he does it,
unless he stands on the footboard behind, and lies along the roof
upon his chest, with his chin in the box, it would be difficult to
comprehend. He brought his gun with him, as a curiosity.
Christened 'The Little Rifle,' and displayed outside a shop-window,
it would make the fortune of any retail business in Holborn. When
he had shown himself and talked a little while, he withdrew with
his pocket-instrument, and went bobbing down the cabin, among men
of six feet high and upwards, like a light-house walking among
lamp-posts.
Within a few minutes afterwards, we were out of the canal, and in
the Ohio river again.
The arrangements of the boat were like those of the Messenger, and
the passengers were of the same order of people. We fed at the
same times, on the same kind of viands, in the same dull manner,
and with the same observances. The company appeared to be
oppressed by the same tremendous concealments, and had as little
capacity of enjoyment or light-heartedness. I never in my life did
see such listless, heavy dulness as brooded over these meals: the
very recollection of it weighs me down, and makes me, for the
moment, wretched. Reading and writing on my knee, in our little
cabin, I really dreaded the coming of the hour that summoned us to
table; and was as glad to escape from it again, as if it had been a
penance or a punishment. Healthy cheerfulness and good spirits
forming a part of the banquet, I could soak my crusts in the
fountain with Le Sage's strolling player, and revel in their glad
enjoyment: but sitting down with so many fellow-animals to ward
off thirst and hunger as a business; to empty, each creature, his
Yahoo's trough as quickly as he can, and then slink sullenly away;
to have these social sacraments stripped of everything but the mere
greedy satisfaction of the natural cravings; goes so against the
grain with me, that I seriously believe the recollection of these
funeral feasts will be a waking nightmare to me all my life.
There was some relief in this boat, too, which there had not been
in the other, for the captain (a blunt, good-natured fellow) had
his handsome wife with him, who was disposed to be lively and
agreeable, as were a few other lady-passengers who had their seats
about us at the same end of the table. But nothing could have made
head against the depressing influence of the general body. There
was a magnetism of dulness in them which would have beaten down the
most facetious companion that the earth ever knew. A jest would
have been a crime, and a smile would have faded into a grinning
horror. Such deadly, leaden people; such systematic plodding,
weary, insupportable heaviness; such a mass of animated indigestion
in respect of all that was genial, jovial, frank, social, or
hearty; never, sure, was brought together elsewhere since the world
began.
Nor was the scenery, as we approached the junction of the Ohio and
Mississippi rivers, at all inspiriting in its influence. The trees
were stunted in their growth; the banks were low and flat; the
settlements and log cabins fewer in number: their inhabitants more
wan and wretched than any we had encountered yet. No songs of
birds were in the air, no pleasant scents, no moving lights and
shadows from swift passing clouds. Hour after hour, the changeless
glare of the hot, unwinking sky, shone upon the same monotonous
objects. Hour after hour, the river rolled along, as wearily and
slowly as the time itself.
At length, upon the morning of the third day, we arrived at a spot
so much more desolate than any we had yet beheld, that the
forlornest places we had passed, were, in comparison with it, full
of interest. At the junction of the two rivers, on ground so flat
and low and marshy, that at certain seasons of the year it is
inundated to the house-tops, lies a breeding-place of fever, ague,
and death; vaunted in England as a mine of Golden Hope, and
speculated in, on the faith of monstrous representations, to many
people's ruin. A dismal swamp, on which the half-built houses rot
away: cleared here and there for the space of a few yards; and
teeming, then, with rank unwholesome vegetation, in whose baleful
shade the wretched wanderers who are tempted hither, droop, and
die, and lay their bones; the hateful Mississippi circling and
eddying before it, and turning off upon its southern course a slimy
monster hideous to behold; a hotbed of disease, an ugly sepulchre,
a grave uncheered by any gleam of promise: a place without one
single quality, in earth or air or water, to commend it: such is
this dismal Cairo.
But what words shall describe the Mississippi, great father of
rivers, who (praise be to Heaven) has no young children like him!
An enormous ditch, sometimes two or three miles wide, running
liquid mud, six miles an hour: its strong and frothy current
choked and obstructed everywhere by huge logs and whole forest
trees: now twining themselves together in great rafts, from the
interstices of which a sedgy, lazy foam works up, to float upon the
water's top; now rolling past like monstrous bodies, their tangled
roots showing like matted hair; now glancing singly by like giant
leeches; and now writhing round and round in the vortex of some
small whirlpool, like wounded snakes. The banks low, the trees
dwarfish, the marshes swarming with frogs, the wretched cabins few
and far apart, their inmates hollow-cheeked and pale, the weather
very hot, mosquitoes penetrating into every crack and crevice of
the boat, mud and slime on everything: nothing pleasant in its
aspect, but the harmless lightning which flickers every night upon
the dark horizon.
For two days we toiled up this foul stream, striking constantly
against the floating timber, or stopping to avoid those more
dangerous obstacles, the snags, or sawyers, which are the hidden
trunks of trees that have their roots below the tide. When the
nights are very dark, the look-out stationed in the head of the
boat, knows by the ripple of the water if any great impediment be
near at hand, and rings a bell beside him, which is the signal for
the engine to be stopped: but always in the night this bell has
work to do, and after every ring, there comes a blow which renders
it no easy matter to remain in bed.
The decline of day here was very gorgeous; tingeing the firmament
deeply with red and gold, up to the very keystone of the arch above
us. As the sun went down behind the bank, the slightest blades of
grass upon it seemed to become as distinctly visible as the
arteries in the skeleton of a leaf; and when, as it slowly sank,
the red and golden bars upon the water grew dimmer, and dimmer yet,
as if they were sinking too; and all the glowing colours of
departing day paled, inch by inch, before the sombre night; the
scene became a thousand times more lonesome and more dreary than
before, and all its influences darkened with the sky.
We drank the muddy water of this river while we were upon it. It
is considered wholesome by the natives, and is something more
opaque than gruel. I have seen water like it at the Filter-shops,
but nowhere else.
On the fourth night after leaving Louisville, we reached St. Louis,
and here I witnessed the conclusion of an incident, trifling enough
in itself, but very pleasant to see, which had interested me during
the whole journey.
There was a little woman on board, with a little baby; and both
little woman and little child were cheerful, good-looking, bright-
eyed, and fair to see. The little woman had been passing a long
time with her sick mother in New York, and had left her home in St.
Louis, in that condition in which ladies who truly love their lords
desire to be. The baby was born in her mother's house; and she had
not seen her husband (to whom she was now returning), for twelve
months: having left him a month or two after their marriage.
Well, to be sure, there never was a little woman so full of hope,
and tenderness, and love, and anxiety, as this little woman was:
and all day long she wondered whether 'He' would be at the wharf;
and whether 'He' had got her letter; and whether, if she sent the
baby ashore by somebody else, 'He' would know it, meeting it in the
street: which, seeing that he had never set eyes upon it in his
life, was not very likely in the abstract, but was probable enough,
to the young mother. She was such an artless little creature; and
was in such a sunny, beaming, hopeful state; and let out all this
matter clinging close about her heart, so freely; that all the
other lady passengers entered into the spirit of it as much as she;
and the captain (who heard all about it from his wife) was wondrous
sly, I promise you: inquiring, every time we met at table, as in
forgetfulness, whether she expected anybody to meet her at St.
Louis, and whether she would want to go ashore the night we reached
it (but he supposed she wouldn't), and cutting many other dry jokes
of that nature. There was one little weazen, dried-apple-faced old
woman, who took occasion to doubt the constancy of husbands in such
circumstances of bereavement; and there was another lady (with a
lap-dog) old enough to moralize on the lightness of human
affections, and yet not so old that she could help nursing the
baby, now and then, or laughing with the rest, when the little
woman called it by its father's name, and asked it all manner of
fantastic questions concerning him in the joy of her heart.
It was something of a blow to the little woman, that when we were
within twenty miles of our destination, it became clearly necessary
to put this baby to bed. But she got over it with the same good
humour; tied a handkerchief round her head; and came out into the
little gallery with the rest. Then, such an oracle as she became
in reference to the localities! and such facetiousness as was
displayed by the married ladies! and such sympathy as was shown by
the single ones! and such peals of laughter as the little woman
herself (who would just as soon have cried) greeted every jest
with!
At last, there were the lights of St. Louis, and here was the
wharf, and those were the steps: and the little woman covering her
face with her hands, and laughing (or seeming to laugh) more than
ever, ran into her own cabin, and shut herself up. I have no doubt
that in the charming inconsistency of such excitement, she stopped
her ears, lest she should hear 'Him' asking for her: but I did not
see her do it.
Then, a great crowd of people rushed on board, though the boat was
not yet made fast, but was wandering about, among the other boats,
to find a landing-place: and everybody looked for the husband:
and nobody saw him: when, in the midst of us all - Heaven knows
how she ever got there - there was the little woman clinging with
both arms tight round the neck of a fine, good-looking, sturdy
young fellow! and in a moment afterwards, there she was again,
actually clapping her little hands for joy, as she dragged him
through the small door of her small cabin, to look at the baby as
he lay asleep!
We went to a large hotel, called the Planter's House: built like
an English hospital, with long passages and bare walls, and sky-
lights above the room-doors for the free circulation of air. There
were a great many boarders in it; and as many lights sparkled and
glistened from the windows down into the street below, when we
drove up, as if it had been illuminated on some occasion of
rejoicing. It is an excellent house, and the proprietors have most
bountiful notions of providing the creature comforts. Dining alone
with my wife in our own room, one day, I counted fourteen dishes on
the table at once.
In the old French portion of the town, the thoroughfares are narrow
and crooked, and some of the houses are very quaint and
picturesque: being built of wood, with tumble-down galleries
before the windows, approachable by stairs or rather ladders from
the street. There are queer little barbers' shops and drinking-
houses too, in this quarter; and abundance of crazy old tenements
with blinking casements, such as may be seen in Flanders. Some of
these ancient habitations, with high garret gable-windows perking
into the roofs, have a kind of French shrug about them; and being
lop-sided with age, appear to hold their heads askew, besides, as
if they were grimacing in astonishment at the American
Improvements.
It is hardly necessary to say, that these consist of wharfs and
warehouses, and new buildings in all directions; and of a great
many vast plans which are still 'progressing.' Already, however,
some very good houses, broad streets, and marble-fronted shops,
have gone so far ahead as to be in a state of completion; and the
town bids fair in a few years to improve considerably: though it
is not likely ever to vie, in point of elegance or beauty, with
Cincinnati.
The Roman Catholic religion, introduced here by the early French
settlers, prevails extensively. Among the public institutions are
a Jesuit college; a convent for 'the Ladies of the Sacred Heart;'
and a large chapel attached to the college, which was in course of
erection at the time of my visit, and was intended to be
consecrated on the second of December in the next year. The
architect of this building, is one of the reverend fathers of the
school, and the works proceed under his sole direction. The organ
will be sent from Belgium.
In addition to these establishments, there is a Roman Catholic
cathedral, dedicated to Saint Francis Xavier; and a hospital,
founded by the munificence of a deceased resident, who was a member
of that church. It also sends missionaries from hence among the
Indian tribes.
The Unitarian church is represented, in this remote place, as in
most other parts of America, by a gentleman of great worth and
excellence. The poor have good reason to remember and bless it;
for it befriends them, and aids the cause of rational education,
without any sectarian or selfish views. It is liberal in all its
actions; of kind construction; and of wide benevolence.
There are three free-schools already erected, and in full operation
in this city. A fourth is building, and will soon be opened.
No man ever admits the unhealthiness of the place he dwells in
(unless he is going away from it), and I shall therefore, I have no
doubt, be at issue with the inhabitants of St. Louis, in
questioning the perfect salubrity of its climate, and in hinting
that I think it must rather dispose to fever, in the summer and
autumnal seasons. Just adding, that it is very hot, lies among
great rivers, and has vast tracts of undrained swampy land around
it, I leave the reader to form his own opinion.
As I had a great desire to see a Prairie before turning back from
the furthest point of my wanderings; and as some gentlemen of the
town had, in their hospitable consideration, an equal desire to
gratify me; a day was fixed, before my departure, for an expedition
to the Looking-Glass Prairie, which is within thirty miles of the
town. Deeming it possible that my readers may not object to know
what kind of thing such a gipsy party may be at that distance from
home, and among what sort of objects it moves, I will describe the
jaunt in another chapter.
CHAPTER XIII - A JAUNT TO THE LOOKING-GLASS PRAIRIE AND BACK
I MAY premise that the word Prairie is variously pronounced
PARAAER, PAREARER, PAROARER. The latter mode of pronunciation is
perhaps the most in favour.
We were fourteen in all, and all young men: indeed it is a
singular though very natural feature in the society of these
distant settlements, that it is mainly composed of adventurous
persons in the prime of life, and has very few grey heads among it.
There were no ladies: the trip being a fatiguing one: and we were
to start at five o'clock in the morning punctually.
I was called at four, that I might be certain of keeping nobody
waiting; and having got some bread and milk for breakfast, threw up
the window and looked down into the street, expecting to see the
whole party busily astir, and great preparations going on below.
But as everything was very quiet, and the street presented that
hopeless aspect with which five o'clock in the morning is familiar
elsewhere, I deemed it as well to go to bed again, and went
accordingly.
I woke again at seven o'clock, and by that time the party had
assembled, and were gathered round, one light carriage, with a very
stout axletree; one something on wheels like an amateur carrier's
cart; one double phaeton of great antiquity and unearthly
construction; one gig with a great hole in its back and a broken
head; and one rider on horseback who was to go on before. I got
into the first coach with three companions; the rest bestowed
themselves in the other vehicles; two large baskets were made fast
to the lightest; two large stone jars in wicker cases, technically
known as demi-johns, were consigned to the 'least rowdy' of the
party for safe-keeping; and the procession moved off to the
ferryboat, in which it was to cross the river bodily, men, horses,
carriages, and all, as the manner in these parts is.
We got over the river in due course, and mustered again before a
little wooden box on wheels, hove down all aslant in a morass, with
'MERCHANT TAILOR' painted in very large letters over the door.
Having settled the order of proceeding, and the road to be taken,
we started off once more and began to make our way through an ill-
favoured Black Hollow, called, less expressively, the American
Bottom.
The previous day had been - not to say hot, for the term is weak
and lukewarm in its power of conveying an idea of the temperature.
The town had been on fire; in a blaze. But at night it had come on
to rain in torrents, and all night long it had rained without
cessation. We had a pair of very strong horses, but travelled at
the rate of little more than a couple of miles an hour, through one
unbroken slough of black mud and water. It had no variety but in
depth. Now it was only half over the wheels, now it hid the
axletree, and now the coach sank down in it almost to the windows.
The air resounded in all directions with the loud chirping of the
frogs, who, with the pigs (a coarse, ugly breed, as unwholesome-
looking as though they were the spontaneous growth of the country),
had the whole scene to themselves. Here and there we passed a log
hut: but the wretched cabins were wide apart and thinly scattered,
for though the soil is very rich in this place, few people can
exist in such a deadly atmosphere. On either side of the track, if
it deserve the name, was the thick 'bush;' and everywhere was
stagnant, slimy, rotten, filthy water.
As it is the custom in these parts to give a horse a gallon or so
of cold water whenever he is in a foam with heat, we halted for
that purpose, at a log inn in the wood, far removed from any other
residence. It consisted of one room, bare-roofed and bare-walled
of course, with a loft above. The ministering priest was a swarthy
young savage, in a shirt of cotton print like bed-furniture, and a
pair of ragged trousers. There were a couple of young boys, too,
nearly naked, lying idle by the well; and they, and he, and THE
traveller at the inn, turned out to look at us.
The traveller was an old man with a grey gristly beard two inches
long, a shaggy moustache of the same hue, and enormous eyebrows;
which almost obscured his lazy, semi-drunken glance, as he stood
regarding us with folded arms: poising himself alternately upon
his toes and heels. On being addressed by one of the party, he
drew nearer, and said, rubbing his chin (which scraped under his
horny hand like fresh gravel beneath a nailed shoe), that he was
from Delaware, and had lately bought a farm 'down there,' pointing
into one of the marshes where the stunted trees were thickest. He
was 'going,' he added, to St. Louis, to fetch his family, whom he
had left behind; but he seemed in no great hurry to bring on these
incumbrances, for when we moved away, he loitered back into the
cabin, and was plainly bent on stopping there so long as his money
lasted. He was a great politician of course, and explained his
opinions at some length to one of our company; but I only remember
that he concluded with two sentiments, one of which was, Somebody
for ever; and the other, Blast everybody else! which is by no means
a bad abstract of the general creed in these matters.
When the horses were swollen out to about twice their natural
dimensions (there seems to be an idea here, that this kind of
inflation improves their going), we went forward again, through mud
and mire, and damp, and festering heat, and brake and bush,
attended always by the music of the frogs and pigs, until nearly
noon, when we halted at a place called Belleville.
Belleville was a small collection of wooden houses, huddled
together in the very heart of the bush and swamp. Many of them had
singularly bright doors of red and yellow; for the place had been
lately visited by a travelling painter, 'who got along,' as I was
told, 'by eating his way.' The criminal court was sitting, and was
at that moment trying some criminals for horse-stealing: with whom
it would most likely go hard: for live stock of all kinds being
necessarily very much exposed in the woods, is held by the
community in rather higher value than human life; and for this
reason, juries generally make a point of finding all men indicted
for cattle-stealing, guilty, whether or no.
The horses belonging to the bar, the judge, and witnesses, were
tied to temporary racks set up roughly in the road; by which is to
be understood, a forest path, nearly knee-deep in mud and slime.
There was an hotel in this place, which, like all hotels in
America, had its large dining-room for the public table. It was an
odd, shambling, low-roofed out-house, half-cowshed and half-
kitchen, with a coarse brown canvas table-cloth, and tin sconces
stuck against the walls, to hold candles at supper-time. The
horseman had gone forward to have coffee and some eatables
prepared, and they were by this time nearly ready. He had ordered
'wheat-bread and chicken fixings,' in preference to 'corn-bread and
common doings.' The latter kind of rejection includes only pork
and bacon. The former comprehends broiled ham, sausages, veal
cutlets, steaks, and such other viands of that nature as may be
supposed, by a tolerably wide poetical construction, 'to fix' a
chicken comfortably in the digestive organs of any lady or
gentleman.
On one of the door-posts at this inn, was a tin plate, whereon was
inscribed in characters of gold, 'Doctor Crocus;' and on a sheet of
paper, pasted up by the side of this plate, was a written
announcement that Dr. Crocus would that evening deliver a lecture
on Phrenology for the benefit of the Belleville public; at a
charge, for admission, of so much a head.
Straying up-stairs, during the preparation of the chicken fixings,
I happened to pass the doctor's chamber; and as the door stood wide
open, and the room was empty, I made bold to peep in.
It was a bare, unfurnished, comfortless room, with an unframed
portrait hanging up at the head of the bed; a likeness, I take it,
of the Doctor, for the forehead was fully displayed, and great
stress was laid by the artist upon its phrenological developments.
The bed itself was covered with an old patch-work counterpane. The
room was destitute of carpet or of curtain. There was a damp
fireplace without any stove, full of wood ashes; a chair, and a
very small table; and on the last-named piece of furniture was
displayed, in grand array, the doctor's library, consisting of some
half-dozen greasy old books.
Now, it certainly looked about the last apartment on the whole
earth out of which any man would be likely to get anything to do
him good. But the door, as I have said, stood coaxingly open, and
plainly said in conjunction with the chair, the portrait, the
table, and the books, 'Walk in, gentlemen, walk in! Don't be ill,
gentlemen, when you may be well in no time. Doctor Crocus is here,
gentlemen, the celebrated Dr. Crocus! Dr. Crocus has come all this
way to cure you, gentlemen. If you haven't heard of Dr. Crocus,
it's your fault, gentlemen, who live a little way out of the world
here: not Dr. Crocus's. Walk in, gentlemen, walk in!'
In the passage below, when I went down-stairs again, was Dr. Crocus
himself. A crowd had flocked in from the Court House, and a voice
from among them called out to the landlord, 'Colonel! introduce
Doctor Crocus.'
'Mr. Dickens,' says the colonel, 'Doctor Crocus.'
Upon which Doctor Crocus, who is a tall, fine-looking Scotchman,
but rather fierce and warlike in appearance for a professor of the
peaceful art of healing, bursts out of the concourse with his right
arm extended, and his chest thrown out as far as it will possibly
come, and says:
'Your countryman, sir!'
Whereupon Doctor Crocus and I shake hands; and Doctor Crocus looks
as if I didn't by any means realise his expectations, which, in a
linen blouse, and a great straw hat, with a green ribbon, and no
gloves, and my face and nose profusely ornamented with the stings
of mosquitoes and the bites of bugs, it is very likely I did not.
'Long in these parts, sir?' says I.
'Three or four months, sir,' says the Doctor.
'Do you think of soon returning to the old country?' says I.
Doctor Crocus makes no verbal answer, but gives me an imploring
look, which says so plainly 'Will you ask me that again, a little
louder, if you please?' that I repeat the question.
'Think of soon returning to the old country, sir!' repeats the
Doctor.
'To the old country, sir,' I rejoin.
Doctor Crocus looks round upon the crowd to observe the effect he
produces, rubs his hands, and says, in a very loud voice:
'Not yet awhile, sir, not yet. You won't catch me at that just
yet, sir. I am a little too fond of freedom for THAT, sir. Ha,
ha! It's not so easy for a man to tear himself from a free country
such as this is, sir. Ha, ha! No, no! Ha, ha! None of that till
one's obliged to do it, sir. No, no!'
As Doctor Crocus says these latter words, he shakes his head,
knowingly, and laughs again. Many of the bystanders shake their
heads in concert with the doctor, and laugh too, and look at each
other as much as to say, 'A pretty bright and first-rate sort of
chap is Crocus!' and unless I am very much mistaken, a good many
people went to the lecture that night, who never thought about
phrenology, or about Doctor Crocus either, in all their lives
before.
From Belleville, we went on, through the same desolate kind of
waste, and constantly attended, without the interval of a moment,
by the same music; until, at three o'clock in the afternoon, we
halted once more at a village called Lebanon to inflate the horses
again, and give them some corn besides: of which they stood much
in need. Pending this ceremony, I walked into the village, where I
met a full-sized dwelling-house coming down-hill at a round trot,
drawn by a score or more of oxen.
The public-house was so very clean and good a one, that the
managers of the jaunt resolved to return to it and put up there for
the night, if possible. This course decided on, and the horses
being well refreshed, we again pushed forward, and came upon the
Prairie at sunset.
It would be difficult to say why, or how - though it was possibly
from having heard and read so much about it - but the effect on me
was disappointment. Looking towards the setting sun, there lay,
stretched out before my view, a vast expanse of level ground;
unbroken, save by one thin line of trees, which scarcely amounted
to a scratch upon the great blank; until it met the glowing sky,
wherein it seemed to dip: mingling with its rich colours, and
mellowing in its distant blue. There it lay, a tranquil sea or
lake without water, if such a simile be admissible, with the day
going down upon it: a few birds wheeling here and there: and
solitude and silence reigning paramount around. But the grass was
not yet high; there were bare black patches on the ground; and the
few wild flowers that the eye could see, were poor and scanty.
Great as the picture was, its very flatness and extent, which left
nothing to the imagination, tamed it down and cramped its interest.
I felt little of that sense of freedom and exhilaration which a
Scottish heath inspires, or even our English downs awaken. It was
lonely and wild, but oppressive in its barren monotony. I felt
that in traversing the Prairies, I could never abandon myself to
the scene, forgetful of all else; as I should do instinctively,
were the heather underneath my feet, or an iron-bound coast beyond;
but should often glance towards the distant and frequently-receding
line of the horizon, and wish it gained and passed. It is not a
scene to be forgotten, but it is scarcely one, I think (at all
events, as I saw it), to remember with much pleasure, or to covet
the looking-on again, in after-life.
We encamped near a solitary log-house, for the sake of its water,
and dined upon the plain. The baskets contained roast fowls,
buffalo's tongue (an exquisite dainty, by the way), ham, bread,
cheese, and butter; biscuits, champagne, sherry; lemons and sugar
for punch; and abundance of rough ice. The meal was delicious, and
the entertainers were the soul of kindness and good humour. I have
often recalled that cheerful party to my pleasant recollection
since, and shall not easily forget, in junketings nearer home with
friends of older date, my boon companions on the Prairie.
Returning to Lebanon that night, we lay at the little inn at which
we had halted in the afternoon. In point of cleanliness and
comfort it would have suffered by no comparison with any English
alehouse, of a homely kind, in England.
Rising at five o'clock next morning, I took a walk about the
village: none of the houses were strolling about to-day, but it
was early for them yet, perhaps: and then amused myself by
lounging in a kind of farm-yard behind the tavern, of which the
leading features were, a strange jumble of rough sheds for stables;
a rude colonnade, built as a cool place of summer resort; a deep
well; a great earthen mound for keeping vegetables in, in winter
time; and a pigeon-house, whose little apertures looked, as they do
in all pigeon-houses, very much too small for the admission of the
plump and swelling-breasted birds who were strutting about it,
though they tried to get in never so hard. That interest
exhausted, I took a survey of the inn's two parlours, which were
decorated with coloured prints of Washington, and President
Madison, and of a white-faced young lady (much speckled by the
flies), who held up her gold neck-chain for the admiration of the
spectator, and informed all admiring comers that she was 'Just
Seventeen:' although I should have thought her older. In the best
room were two oil portraits of the kit-cat size, representing the
landlord and his infant son; both looking as bold as lions, and
staring out of the canvas with an intensity that would have been
cheap at any price. They were painted, I think, by the artist who
had touched up the Belleville doors with red and gold; for I seemed
to recognise his style immediately.
After breakfast, we started to return by a different way from that
which we had taken yesterday, and coming up at ten o'clock with an
encampment of German emigrants carrying their goods in carts, who
had made a rousing fire which they were just quitting, stopped
there to refresh. And very pleasant the fire was; for, hot though
it had been yesterday, it was quite cold to-day, and the wind blew
keenly. Looming in the distance, as we rode along, was another of
the ancient Indian burial-places, called The Monks' Mound; in
memory of a body of fanatics of the order of La Trappe, who founded
a desolate convent there, many years ago, when there were no
settlers within a thousand miles, and were all swept off by the
pernicious climate: in which lamentable fatality, few rational
people will suppose, perhaps, that society experienced any very
severe deprivation.
The track of to-day had the same features as the track of
yesterday. There was the swamp, the bush, and the perpetual chorus
of frogs, the rank unseemly growth, the unwholesome steaming earth.
Here and there, and frequently too, we encountered a solitary
broken-down waggon, full of some new settler's goods. It was a
pitiful sight to see one of these vehicles deep in the mire; the
axle-tree broken; the wheel lying idly by its side; the man gone
miles away, to look for assistance; the woman seated among their
wandering household gods with a baby at her breast, a picture of
forlorn, dejected patience; the team of oxen crouching down
mournfully in the mud, and breathing forth such clouds of vapour
from their mouths and nostrils, that all the damp mist and fog
around seemed to have come direct from them.
In due time we mustered once again before the merchant tailor's,
and having done so, crossed over to the city in the ferry-boat:
passing, on the way, a spot called Bloody Island, the duelling-
ground of St. Louis, and so designated in honour of the last fatal
combat fought there, which was with pistols, breast to breast.
Both combatants fell dead upon the ground; and possibly some
rational people may think of them, as of the gloomy madmen on the
Monks' Mound, that they were no great loss to the community.
CHAPTER XIV - RETURN TO CINCINNATI. A STAGE-COACH RIDE FROM THAT
CITY TO COLUMBUS, AND THENCE TO SANDUSKY. SO, BY LAKE ERIE, TO THE
FALLS OF NIAGARA
AS I had a desire to travel through the interior of the state of
Ohio, and to 'strike the lakes,' as the phrase is, at a small town
called Sandusky, to which that route would conduct us on our way to
Niagara, we had to return from St. Louis by the way we had come,
and to retrace our former track as far as Cincinnati.
The day on which we were to take leave of St. Louis being very
fine; and the steamboat, which was to have started I don't know how
early in the morning, postponing, for the third or fourth time, her
departure until the afternoon; we rode forward to an old French
village on the river, called properly Carondelet, and nicknamed
Vide Poche, and arranged that the packet should call for us there.
The place consisted of a few poor cottages, and two or three
public-houses; the state of whose larders certainly seemed to
justify the second designation of the village, for there was
nothing to eat in any of them. At length, however, by going back
some half a mile or so, we found a solitary house where ham and
coffee were procurable; and there we tarried to wait the advent of
the boat, which would come in sight from the green before the door,
a long way off.
It was a neat, unpretending village tavern, and we took our repast
in a quaint little room with a bed in it, decorated with some old
oil paintings, which in their time had probably done duty in a
Catholic chapel or monastery. The fare was very good, and served
with great cleanliness. The house was kept by a characteristic old
couple, with whom we had a long talk, and who were perhaps a very
good sample of that kind of people in the West.
The landlord was a dry, tough, hard-faced old fellow (not so very
old either, for he was but just turned sixty, I should think), who
had been out with the militia in the last war with England, and had
seen all kinds of service, - except a battle; and he had been very
near seeing that, he added: very near. He had all his life been
restless and locomotive, with an irresistible desire for change;
and was still the son of his old self: for if he had nothing to
keep him at home, he said (slightly jerking his hat and his thumb
towards the window of the room in which the old lady sat, as we
stood talking in front of the house), he would clean up his musket,
and be off to Texas to-morrow morning. He was one of the very many
descendants of Cain proper to this continent, who seem destined
from their birth to serve as pioneers in the great human army: who
gladly go on from year to year extending its outposts, and leaving
home after home behind them; and die at last, utterly regardless of
their graves being left thousands of miles behind, by the wandering
generation who succeed.
His wife was a domesticated, kind-hearted old soul, who had come
with him, 'from the queen city of the world,' which, it seemed, was
Philadelphia; but had no love for this Western country, and indeed
had little reason to bear it any; having seen her children, one by
one, die here of fever, in the full prime and beauty of their
youth. Her heart was sore, she said, to think of them; and to talk
on this theme, even to strangers, in that blighted place, so far
from her old home, eased it somewhat, and became a melancholy
pleasure.
The boat appearing towards evening, we bade adieu to the poor old
lady and her vagrant spouse, and making for the nearest landing-
place, were soon on board The Messenger again, in our old cabin,
and steaming down the Mississippi.
If the coming up this river, slowly making head against the stream,
be an irksome journey, the shooting down it with the turbid current
is almost worse; for then the boat, proceeding at the rate of
twelve or fifteen miles an hour, has to force its passage through a
labyrinth of floating logs, which, in the dark, it is often
impossible to see beforehand or avoid. All that night, the bell
was never silent for five minutes at a time; and after every ring
the vessel reeled again, sometimes beneath a single blow, sometimes
beneath a dozen dealt in quick succession, the lightest of which
seemed more than enough to beat in her frail keel, as though it had
been pie-crust. Looking down upon the filthy river after dark, it
seemed to be alive with monsters, as these black masses rolled upon
the surface, or came starting up again, head first, when the boat,
in ploughing her way among a shoal of such obstructions, drove a
few among them for the moment under water. Sometimes the engine
stopped during a long interval, and then before her and behind, and
gathering close about her on all sides, were so many of these ill-
favoured obstacles that she was fairly hemmed in; the centre of a
floating island; and was constrained to pause until they parted,
somewhere, as dark clouds will do before the wind, and opened by
degrees a channel out.
In good time next morning, however, we came again in sight of the
detestable morass called Cairo; and stopping there to take in wood,
lay alongside a barge, whose starting timbers scarcely held
together. It was moored to the bank, and on its side was painted
'Coffee House;' that being, I suppose, the floating paradise to
which the people fly for shelter when they lose their houses for a
month or two beneath the hideous waters of the Mississippi. But
looking southward from this point, we had the satisfaction of
seeing that intolerable river dragging its slimy length and ugly
freight abruptly off towards New Orleans; and passing a yellow line
which stretched across the current, were again upon the clear Ohio,
never, I trust, to see the Mississippi more, saving in troubled
dreams and nightmares. Leaving it for the company of its sparkling
neighbour, was like the transition from pain to ease, or the
awakening from a horrible vision to cheerful realities.
We arrived at Louisville on the fourth night, and gladly availed
ourselves of its excellent hotel. Next day we went on in the Ben
Franklin, a beautiful mail steamboat, and reached Cincinnati
shortly after midnight. Being by this time nearly tired of
sleeping upon shelves, we had remained awake to go ashore
straightway; and groping a passage across the dark decks of other
boats, and among labyrinths of engine-machinery and leaking casks
of molasses, we reached the streets, knocked up the porter at the
hotel where we had stayed before, and were, to our great joy,
safely housed soon afterwards.
We rested but one day at Cincinnati, and then resumed our journey
to Sandusky. As it comprised two varieties of stage-coach
travelling, which, with those I have already glanced at, comprehend
the main characteristics of this mode of transit in America, I will
take the reader as our fellow-passenger, and pledge myself to
perform the distance with all possible despatch.
Our place of destination in the first instance is Columbus. It is
distant about a hundred and twenty miles from Cincinnati, but there
is a macadamised road (rare blessing!) the whole way, and the rate
of travelling upon it is six miles an hour.
We start at eight o'clock in the morning, in a great mail-coach,
whose huge cheeks are so very ruddy and plethoric, that it appears
to be troubled with a tendency of blood to the head. Dropsical it
certainly is, for it will hold a dozen passengers inside. But,
wonderful to add, it is very clean and bright, being nearly new;
and rattles through the streets of Cincinnati gaily.
Our way lies through a beautiful country, richly cultivated, and
luxuriant in its promise of an abundant harvest. Sometimes we pass
a field where the strong bristling stalks of Indian corn look like
a crop of walking-sticks, and sometimes an enclosure where the
green wheat is springing up among a labyrinth of stumps; the
primitive worm-fence is universal, and an ugly thing it is; but the
farms are neatly kept, and, save for these differences, one might
be travelling just now in Kent.
We often stop to water at a roadside inn, which is always dull and
silent. The coachman dismounts and fills his bucket, and holds it
to the horses' heads. There is scarcely ever any one to help him;
there are seldom any loungers standing round; and never any stable-
company with jokes to crack. Sometimes, when we have changed our
team, there is a difficulty in starting again, arising out of the
prevalent mode of breaking a young horse: which is to catch him,
harness him against his will, and put him in a stage-coach without
further notice: but we get on somehow or other, after a great many
kicks and a violent struggle; and jog on as before again.
Occasionally, when we stop to change, some two or three half-
drunken loafers will come loitering out with their hands in their
pockets, or will be seen kicking their heels in rocking-chairs, or
lounging on the window-sill, or sitting on a rail within the
colonnade: they have not often anything to say though, either to
us or to each other, but sit there idly staring at the coach and
horses. The landlord of the inn is usually among them, and seems,
of all the party, to be the least connected with the business of
the house. Indeed he is with reference to the tavern, what the
driver is in relation to the coach and passengers: whatever
happens in his sphere of action, he is quite indifferent, and
perfectly easy in his mind.
The frequent change of coachmen works no change or variety in the
coachman's character. He is always dirty, sullen, and taciturn.
If he be capable of smartness of any kind, moral or physical, he
has a faculty of concealing it which is truly marvellous. He never
speaks to you as you sit beside him on the box, and if you speak to
him, he answers (if at all) in monosyllables. He points out
nothing on the road, and seldom looks at anything: being, to all
appearance, thoroughly weary of it and of existence generally. As
to doing the honours of his coach, his business, as I have said, is
with the horses. The coach follows because it is attached to them
and goes on wheels: not because you are in it. Sometimes, towards
the end of a long stage, he suddenly breaks out into a discordant
fragment of an election song, but his face never sings along with
him: it is only his voice, and not often that.
He always chews and always spits, and never encumbers himself with
a pocket-handkerchief. The consequences to the box passenger,
especially when the wind blows towards him, are not agreeable.
Whenever the coach stops, and you can hear the voices of the inside
passengers; or whenever any bystander addresses them, or any one
among them; or they address each other; you will hear one phrase
repeated over and over and over again to the most extraordinary
extent. It is an ordinary and unpromising phrase enough, being
neither more nor less than 'Yes, sir;' but it is adapted to every
variety of circumstance, and fills up every pause in the
conversation. Thus:-
The time is one o'clock at noon. The scene, a place where we are
to stay and dine, on this journey. The coach drives up to the door
of an inn. The day is warm, and there are several idlers lingering
about the tavern, and waiting for the public dinner. Among them,
is a stout gentleman in a brown hat, swinging himself to and fro in
a rocking-chair on the pavement.
As the coach stops, a gentleman in a straw hat looks out of the
window:
STRAW HAT. (To the stout gentleman in the rocking-chair.) I
reckon that's Judge Jefferson, an't it?
BROWN HAT. (Still swinging; speaking very slowly; and without any
emotion whatever.) Yes, sir.
STRAW HAT. Warm weather, Judge.
BROWN HAT. Yes, sir.
STRAW HAT. There was a snap of cold, last week.
BROWN HAT. Yes, sir.
STRAW HAT. Yes, sir.
A pause. They look at each other, very seriously.
STRAW HAT. I calculate you'll have got through that case of the
corporation, Judge, by this time, now?
BROWN HAT. Yes, sir.
STRAW HAT. How did the verdict go, sir?
BROWN HAT. For the defendant, sir.
STRAW HAT. (Interrogatively.) Yes, sir?
BROWN HAT. (Affirmatively.) Yes, sir.
BOTH. (Musingly, as each gazes down the street.) Yes, sir.
Another pause. They look at each other again, still more seriously
than before.
BROWN HAT. This coach is rather behind its time to-day, I guess.
STRAW HAT. (Doubtingly.) Yes, sir.
BROWN HAT. (Looking at his watch.) Yes, sir; nigh upon two hours.
STRAW HAT. (Raising his eyebrows in very great surprise.) Yes,
sir!
BROWN HAT. (Decisively, as he puts up his watch.) Yes, sir.
ALL THE OTHER INSIDE PASSENGERS. (Among themselves.) Yes, sir.
COACHMAN. (In a very surly tone.) No it an't.
STRAW HAT. (To the coachman.) Well, I don't know, sir. We were a
pretty tall time coming that last fifteen mile. That's a fact.
The coachman making no reply, and plainly declining to enter into
any controversy on a subject so far removed from his sympathies and
feelings, another passenger says, 'Yes, sir;' and the gentleman in
the straw hat in acknowledgment of his courtesy, says 'Yes, sir,'
to him, in return. The straw hat then inquires of the brown hat,
whether that coach in which he (the straw hat) then sits, is not a
new one? To which the brown hat again makes answer, 'Yes, sir.'
STRAW HAT. I thought so. Pretty loud smell of varnish, sir?
BROWN HAT. Yes, sir.
ALL THE OTHER INSIDE PASSENGERS. Yes, sir.
BROWN HAT. (To the company in general.) Yes, sir.
The conversational powers of the company having been by this time
pretty heavily taxed, the straw hat opens the door and gets out;
and all the rest alight also. We dine soon afterwards with the
boarders in the house, and have nothing to drink but tea and
coffee. As they are both very bad and the water is worse, I ask
for brandy; but it is a Temperance Hotel, and spirits are not to be
had for love or money. This preposterous forcing of unpleasant
drinks down the reluctant throats of travellers is not at all
uncommon in America, but I never discovered that the scruples of
such wincing landlords induced them to preserve any unusually nice
balance between the quality of their fare, and their scale of
charges: on the contrary, I rather suspected them of diminishing
the one and exalting the other, by way of recompense for the loss
of their profit on the sale of spirituous liquors. After all,
perhaps, the plainest course for persons of such tender
consciences, would be, a total abstinence from tavern-keeping.
Dinner over, we get into another vehicle which is ready at the door
(for the coach has been changed in the interval), and resume our
journey; which continues through the same kind of country until
evening, when we come to the town where we are to stop for tea and
supper; and having delivered the mail bags at the Post-office, ride
through the usual wide street, lined with the usual stores and
houses (the drapers always having hung up at their door, by way of
sign, a piece of bright red cloth), to the hotel where this meal is
prepared. There being many boarders here, we sit down, a large
party, and a very melancholy one as usual. But there is a buxom
hostess at the head of the table, and opposite, a simple Welsh
schoolmaster with his wife and child; who came here, on a
speculation of greater promise than performance, to teach the
classics: and they are sufficient subjects of interest until the
meal is over, and another coach is ready. In it we go on once
more, lighted by a bright moon, until midnight; when we stop to
change the coach again, and remain for half an hour or so in a
miserable room, with a blurred lithograph of Washington over the
smoky fire-place, and a mighty jug of cold water on the table: to
which refreshment the moody passengers do so apply themselves that
they would seem to be, one and all, keen patients of Dr. Sangrado.
Among them is a very little boy, who chews tobacco like a very big
one; and a droning gentleman, who talks arithmetically and
statistically on all subjects, from poetry downwards; and who
always speaks in the same key, with exactly the same emphasis, and
with very grave deliberation. He came outside just now, and told
me how that the uncle of a certain young lady who had been spirited
away and married by a certain captain, lived in these parts; and
how this uncle was so valiant and ferocious that he shouldn't
wonder if he were to follow the said captain to England, 'and shoot
him down in the street wherever he found him;' in the feasibility
of which strong measure I, being for the moment rather prone to
contradiction, from feeling half asleep and very tired, declined to
acquiesce: assuring him that if the uncle did resort to it, or
gratified any other little whim of the like nature, he would find
himself one morning prematurely throttled at the Old Bailey: and
that he would do well to make his will before he went, as he would
certainly want it before he had been in Britain very long.
On we go, all night, and by-and-by the day begins to break, and
presently the first cheerful rays of the warm sun come slanting on
us brightly. It sheds its light upon a miserable waste of sodden
grass, and dull trees, and squalid huts, whose aspect is forlorn
and grievous in the last degree. A very desert in the wood, whose
growth of green is dank and noxious like that upon the top of
standing water: where poisonous fungus grows in the rare footprint
on the oozy ground, and sprouts like witches' coral, from the
crevices in the cabin wall and floor; it is a hideous thing to lie
upon the very threshold of a city. But it was purchased years ago,
and as the owner cannot be discovered, the State has been unable to
reclaim it. So there it remains, in the midst of cultivation and
improvement, like ground accursed, and made obscene and rank by
some great crime.
We reached Columbus shortly before seven o'clock, and stayed there,
to refresh, that day and night: having excellent apartments in a
very large unfinished hotel called the Neill House, which were
richly fitted with the polished wood of the black walnut, and
opened on a handsome portico and stone verandah, like rooms in some
Italian mansion. The town is clean and pretty, and of course is
'going to be' much larger. It is the seat of the State legislature
of Ohio, and lays claim, in consequence, to some consideration and
importance.
There being no stage-coach next day, upon the road we wished to
take, I hired 'an extra,' at a reasonable charge to carry us to
Tiffin; a small town from whence there is a railroad to Sandusky.
This extra was an ordinary four-horse stage-coach, such as I have
described, changing horses and drivers, as the stage-coach would,
but was exclusively our own for the journey. To ensure our having
horses at the proper stations, and being incommoded by no
strangers, the proprietors sent an agent on the box, who was to
accompany us the whole way through; and thus attended, and bearing
with us, besides, a hamper full of savoury cold meats, and fruit,
and wine, we started off again in high spirits, at half-past six
o'clock next morning, very much delighted to be by ourselves, and
disposed to enjoy even the roughest journey.
It was well for us, that we were in this humour, for the road we
went over that day, was certainly enough to have shaken tempers
that were not resolutely at Set Fair, down to some inches below
Stormy. At one time we were all flung together in a heap at the
bottom of the coach, and at another we were crushing our heads
against the roof. Now, one side was down deep in the mire, and we
were holding on to the other. Now, the coach was lying on the
tails of the two wheelers; and now it was rearing up in the air, in
a frantic state, with all four horses standing on the top of an
insurmountable eminence, looking coolly back at it, as though they
would say 'Unharness us. It can't be done.' The drivers on these
roads, who certainly get over the ground in a manner which is quite
miraculous, so twist and turn the team about in forcing a passage,
corkscrew fashion, through the bogs and swamps, that it was quite a
common circumstance on looking out of the window, to see the
coachman with the ends of a pair of reins in his hands, apparently
driving nothing, or playing at horses, and the leaders staring at
one unexpectedly from the back of the coach, as if they had some
idea of getting up behind. A great portion of the way was over
what is called a corduroy road, which is made by throwing trunks of
trees into a marsh, and leaving them to settle there. The very
slightest of the jolts with which the ponderous carriage fell from
log to log, was enough, it seemed, to have dislocated all the bones
in the human body. It would be impossible to experience a similar
set of sensations, in any other circumstances, unless perhaps in
attempting to go up to the top of St. Paul's in an omnibus. Never,
never once, that day, was the coach in any position, attitude, or
kind of motion to which we are accustomed in coaches. Never did it
make the smallest approach to one's experience of the proceedings
of any sort of vehicle that goes on wheels.
Still, it was a fine day, and the temperature was delicious, and
though we had left Summer behind us in the west, and were fast
leaving Spring, we were moving towards Niagara and home. We
alighted in a pleasant wood towards the middle of the day, dined on
a fallen tree, and leaving our best fragments with a cottager, and
our worst with the pigs (who swarm in this part of the country like
grains of sand on the sea-shore, to the great comfort of our
commissariat in Canada), we went forward again, gaily.
As night came on, the track grew narrower and narrower, until at
last it so lost itself among the trees, that the driver seemed to
find his way by instinct. We had the comfort of knowing, at least,
that there was no danger of his falling asleep, for every now and
then a wheel would strike against an unseen stump with such a jerk,
that he was fain to hold on pretty tight and pretty quick, to keep
himself upon the box. Nor was there any reason to dread the least
danger from furious driving, inasmuch as over that broken ground
the horses had enough to do to walk; as to shying, there was no
room for that; and a herd of wild elephants could not have run away
in such a wood, with such a coach at their heels. So we stumbled
along, quite satisfied.
These stumps of trees are a curious feature in American travelling.
The varying illusions they present to the unaccustomed eye as it
grows dark, are quite astonishing in their number and reality.
Now, there is a Grecian urn erected in the centre of a lonely
field; now there is a woman weeping at a tomb; now a very
commonplace old gentleman in a white waistcoat, with a thumb thrust
into each arm-hole of his coat; now a student poring on a book; now
a crouching negro; now, a horse, a dog, a cannon, an armed man; a
hunch-back throwing off his cloak and stepping forth into the
light. They were often as entertaining to me as so many glasses in
a magic lantern, and never took their shapes at my bidding, but
seemed to force themselves upon me, whether I would or no; and
strange to say, I sometimes recognised in them counterparts of
figures once familiar to me in pictures attached to childish books,
forgotten long ago.
It soon became too dark, however, even for this amusement, and the
trees were so close together that their dry branches rattled
against the coach on either side, and obliged us all to keep our
heads within. It lightened too, for three whole hours; each flash
being very bright, and blue, and long; and as the vivid streaks
came darting in among the crowded branches, and the thunder rolled
gloomily above the tree tops, one could scarcely help thinking that
there were better neighbourhoods at such a time than thick woods
afforded.
At length, between ten and eleven o'clock at night, a few feeble
lights appeared in the distance, and Upper Sandusky, an Indian
village, where we were to stay till morning, lay before us.
They were gone to bed at the log Inn, which was the only house of
entertainment in the place, but soon answered to our knocking, and
got some tea for us in a sort of kitchen or common room, tapestried
with old newspapers, pasted against the wall. The bed-chamber to
which my wife and I were shown, was a large, low, ghostly room;
with a quantity of withered branches on the hearth, and two doors
without any fastening, opposite to each other, both opening on the
black night and wild country, and so contrived, that one of them
always blew the other open: a novelty in domestic architecture,
which I do not remember to have seen before, and which I was
somewhat disconcerted to have forced on my attention after getting
into bed, as I had a considerable sum in gold for our travelling
expenses, in my dressing-case. Some of the luggage, however, piled
against the panels, soon settled this difficulty, and my sleep
would not have been very much affected that night, I believe,
though it had failed to do so.
My Boston friend climbed up to bed, somewhere in the roof, where
another guest was already snoring hugely. But being bitten beyond
his power of endurance, he turned out again, and fled for shelter
to the coach, which was airing itself in front of the house. This
was not a very politic step, as it turned out; for the pigs
scenting him, and looking upon the coach as a kind of pie with some
manner of meat inside, grunted round it so hideously, that he was
afraid to come out again, and lay there shivering, till morning.
Nor was it possible to warm him, when he did come out, by means of
a glass of brandy: for in Indian villages, the legislature, with a
very good and wise intention, forbids the sale of spirits by tavern
keepers. The precaution, however, is quite inefficacious, for the
Indians never fail to procure liquor of a worse kind, at a dearer
price, from travelling pedlars.
It is a settlement of the Wyandot Indians who inhabit this place.
Among the company at breakfast was a mild old gentleman, who had
been for many years employed by the United States Government in
conducting negotiations with the Indians, and who had just
concluded a treaty with these people by which they bound
themselves, in consideration of a certain annual sum, to remove
next year to some land provided for them, west of the Mississippi,
and a little way beyond St. Louis. He gave me a moving account of
their strong attachment to the familiar scenes of their infancy,
and in particular to the burial-places of their kindred; and of
their great reluctance to leave them. He had witnessed many such
removals, and always with pain, though he knew that they departed
for their own good. The question whether this tribe should go or
stay, had been discussed among them a day or two before, in a hut
erected for the purpose, the logs of which still lay upon the
ground before the inn. When the speaking was done, the ayes and
noes were ranged on opposite sides, and every male adult voted in
his turn. The moment the result was known, the minority (a large
one) cheerfully yielded to the rest, and withdrew all kind of
opposition.
We met some of these poor Indians afterwards, riding on shaggy
ponies. They were so like the meaner sort of gipsies, that if I
could have seen any of them in England, I should have concluded, as
a matter of course, that they belonged to that wandering and
restless people.
Leaving this town directly after breakfast, we pushed forward
again, over a rather worse road than yesterday, if possible, and
arrived about noon at Tiffin, where we parted with the extra. At
two o'clock we took the railroad; the travelling on which was very
slow, its construction being indifferent, and the ground wet and
marshy; and arrived at Sandusky in time to dine that evening. We
put up at a comfortable little hotel on the brink of Lake Erie, lay
there that night, and had no choice but to wait there next day,
until a steamboat bound for Buffalo appeared. The town, which was
sluggish and uninteresting enough, was something like the back of
an English watering-place, out of the season.
Our host, who was very attentive and anxious to make us
comfortable, was a handsome middle-aged man, who had come to this
town from New England, in which part of the country he was
'raised.' When I say that he constantly walked in and out of the
room with his hat on; and stopped to converse in the same free-and-
easy state; and lay down on our sofa, and pulled his newspaper out
of his pocket, and read it at his ease; I merely mention these
traits as characteristic of the country: not at all as being
matter of complaint, or as having been disagreeable to me. I
should undoubtedly be offended by such proceedings at home, because
there they are not the custom, and where they are not, they would
be impertinencies; but in America, the only desire of a good-
natured fellow of this kind, is to treat his guests hospitably and
well; and I had no more right, and I can truly say no more
disposition, to measure his conduct by our English rule and
standard, than I had to quarrel with him for not being of the exact
stature which would qualify him for admission into the Queen's
grenadier guards. As little inclination had I to find fault with a
funny old lady who was an upper domestic in this establishment, and
who, when she came to wait upon us at any meal, sat herself down
comfortably in the most convenient chair, and producing a large pin
to pick her teeth with, remained performing that ceremony, and
steadfastly regarding us meanwhile with much gravity and composure
(now and then pressing us to eat a little more), until it was time
to clear away. It was enough for us, that whatever we wished done
was done with great civility and readiness, and a desire to oblige,
not only here, but everywhere else; and that all our wants were, in
general, zealously anticipated.
We were taking an early dinner at this house, on the day after our
arrival, which was Sunday, when a steamboat came in sight, and
presently touched at the wharf. As she proved to be on her way to
Buffalo, we hurried on board with all speed, and soon left Sandusky
far behind us.
She was a large vessel of five hundred tons, and handsomely fitted
up, though with high-pressure engines; which always conveyed that
kind of feeling to me, which I should be likely to experience, I
think, if I had lodgings on the first-floor of a powder-mill. She
was laden with flour, some casks of which commodity were stored
upon the deck. The captain coming up to have a little
conversation, and to introduce a friend, seated himself astride of
one of these barrels, like a Bacchus of private life; and pulling a
great clasp-knife out of his pocket, began to 'whittle' it as he
talked, by paring thin slices off the edges. And he whittled with
such industry and hearty good will, that but for his being called
away very soon, it must have disappeared bodily, and left nothing
in its place but grist and shavings.
After calling at one or two flat places, with low dams stretching
out into the lake, whereon were stumpy lighthouses, like windmills
without sails, the whole looking like a Dutch vignette, we came at
midnight to Cleveland, where we lay all night, and until nine
o'clock next morning.
I entertained quite a curiosity in reference to this place, from
having seen at Sandusky a specimen of its literature in the shape
of a newspaper, which was very strong indeed upon the subject of
Lord Ashburton's recent arrival at Washington, to adjust the points
in dispute between the United States Government and Great Britain:
informing its readers that as America had 'whipped' England in her
infancy, and whipped her again in her youth, so it was clearly
necessary that she must whip her once again in her maturity; and
pledging its credit to all True Americans, that if Mr. Webster did
his duty in the approaching negotiations, and sent the English Lord
home again in double quick time, they should, within two years,
sing 'Yankee Doodle in Hyde Park, and Hail Columbia in the scarlet
courts of Westminster!' I found it a pretty town, and had the
satisfaction of beholding the outside of the office of the journal
from which I have just quoted. I did not enjoy the delight of
seeing the wit who indited the paragraph in question, but I have no
doubt he is a prodigious man in his way, and held in high repute by
a select circle.
There was a gentleman on board, to whom, as I unintentionally
learned through the thin partition which divided our state-room
from the cabin in which he and his wife conversed together, I was
unwittingly the occasion of very great uneasiness. I don't know
why or wherefore, but I appeared to run in his mind perpetually,
and to dissatisfy him very much. First of all I heard him say:
and the most ludicrous part of the business was, that he said it in
my very ear, and could not have communicated more directly with me,
if he had leaned upon my shoulder, and whispered me: 'Boz is on
board still, my dear.' After a considerable pause, he added,
complainingly, 'Boz keeps himself very close;' which was true
enough, for I was not very well, and was lying down, with a book.
I thought he had done with me after this, but I was deceived; for a
long interval having elapsed, during which I imagine him to have
been turning restlessly from side to side, and trying to go to
sleep; he broke out again, with 'I suppose THAT Boz will be writing
a book by-and-by, and putting all our names in it!' at which
imaginary consequence of being on board a boat with Boz, he
groaned, and became silent.
We called at the town of Erie, at eight o'clock that night, and lay
there an hour. Between five and six next morning, we arrived at
Buffalo, where we breakfasted; and being too near the Great Falls
to wait patiently anywhere else, we set off by the train, the same
morning at nine o'clock, to Niagara.
It was a miserable day; chilly and raw; a damp mist falling; and
the trees in that northern region quite bare and wintry. Whenever
the train halted, I listened for the roar; and was constantly
straining my eyes in the direction where I knew the Falls must be,
from seeing the river rolling on towards them; every moment
expecting to behold the spray. Within a few minutes of our
stopping, not before, I saw two great white clouds rising up slowly
and majestically from the depths of the earth. That was all. At
length we alighted: and then for the first time, I heard the
mighty rush of water, and felt the ground tremble underneath my
feet.
The bank is very steep, and was slippery with rain, and half-melted
ice. I hardly know how I got down, but I was soon at the bottom,
and climbing, with two English officers who were crossing and had
joined me, over some broken rocks, deafened by the noise, half-
blinded by the spray, and wet to the skin. We were at the foot of
the American Fall. I could see an immense torrent of water tearing
headlong down from some great height, but had no idea of shape, or
situation, or anything but vague immensity.
When we were seated in the little ferry-boat, and were crossing the
swollen river immediately before both cataracts, I began to feel
what it was: but I was in a manner stunned, and unable to
comprehend the vastness of the scene. It was not until I came on
Table Rock, and looked - Great Heaven, on what a fall of bright-
green water! - that it came upon me in its full might and majesty.
Then, when I felt how near to my Creator I was standing, the first
effect, and the enduring one - instant and lasting - of the
tremendous spectacle, was Peace. Peace of Mind, tranquillity, calm
recollections of the Dead, great thoughts of Eternal Rest and
Happiness: nothing of gloom or terror. Niagara was at once
stamped upon my heart, an Image of Beauty; to remain there,
changeless and indelible, until its pulses cease to beat, for ever.
Oh, how the strife and trouble of daily life receded from my view,
and lessened in the distance, during the ten memorable days we
passed on that Enchanted Ground! What voices spoke from out the
thundering water; what faces, faded from the earth, looked out upon
me from its gleaming depths; what Heavenly promise glistened in
those angels' tears, the drops of many hues, that showered around,
and twined themselves about the gorgeous arches which the changing
rainbows made!
I never stirred in all that time from the Canadian side, whither I
had gone at first. I never crossed the river again; for I knew
there were people on the other shore, and in such a place it is
natural to shun strange company. To wander to and fro all day, and
see the cataracts from all points of view; to stand upon the edge
of the great Horse-Shoe Fall, marking the hurried water gathering
strength as it approached the verge, yet seeming, too, to pause
before it shot into the gulf below; to gaze from the river's level
up at the torrent as it came streaming down; to climb the
neighbouring heights and watch it through the trees, and see the
wreathing water in the rapids hurrying on to take its fearful
plunge; to linger in the shadow of the solemn rocks three miles
below; watching the river as, stirred by no visible cause, it
heaved and eddied and awoke the echoes, being troubled yet, far
down beneath the surface, by its giant leap; to have Niagara before
me, lighted by the sun and by the moon, red in the day's decline,
and grey as evening slowly fell upon it; to look upon it every day,
and wake up in the night and hear its ceaseless voice: this was
enough.
I think in every quiet season now, still do those waters roll and
leap, and roar and tumble, all day long; still are the rainbows
spanning them, a hundred feet below. Still, when the sun is on
them, do they shine and glow like molten gold. Still, when the day
is gloomy, do they fall like snow, or seem to crumble away like the
front of a great chalk cliff, or roll down the rock like dense
white smoke. But always does the mighty stream appear to die as it
comes down, and always from its unfathomable grave arises that
tremendous ghost of spray and mist which is never laid: which has
haunted this place with the same dread solemnity since Darkness
brooded on the deep, and that first flood before the Deluge - Light
- came rushing on Creation at the word of God.
CHAPTER XV - IN CANADA; TORONTO; KINGSTON; MONTREAL; QUEBEC; ST.
JOHN'S. IN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN; LEBANON; THE SHAKER VILLAGE;
WEST POINT
I wish to abstain from instituting any comparison, or drawing any
parallel whatever, between the social features of the United States
and those of the British Possessions in Canada. For this reason, I
shall confine myself to a very brief account of our journeyings in
the latter territory.
But before I leave Niagara, I must advert to one disgusting
circumstance which can hardly have escaped the observation of any
decent traveller who has visited the Falls.
On Table Rock, there is a cottage belonging to a Guide, where
little relics of the place are sold, and where visitors register
their names in a book kept for the purpose. On the wall of the
room in which a great many of these volumes are preserved, the
following request is posted: 'Visitors will please not copy nor
extract the remarks and poetical effusions from the registers and
albums kept here.'
But for this intimation, I should have let them lie upon the tables
on which they were strewn with careful negligence, like books in a
drawing-room: being quite satisfied with the stupendous silliness
of certain stanzas with an anti-climax at the end of each, which
were framed and hung up on the wall. Curious, however, after
reading this announcement, to see what kind of morsels were so
carefully preserved, I turned a few leaves, and found them scrawled
all over with the vilest and the filthiest ribaldry that ever human
hogs delighted in.
It is humiliating enough to know that there are among men brutes so
obscene and worthless, that they can delight in laying their
miserable profanations upon the very steps of Nature's greatest
altar. But that these should be hoarded up for the delight of
their fellow-swine, and kept in a public place where any eyes may
see them, is a disgrace to the English language in which they are
written (though I hope few of these entries have been made by
Englishmen), and a reproach to the English side, on which they are
preserved.
The quarters of our soldiers at Niagara, are finely and airily
situated. Some of them are large detached houses on the plain
above the Falls, which were originally designed for hotels; and in
the evening time, when the women and children were leaning over the
balconies watching the men as they played at ball and other games
upon the grass before the door, they often presented a little
picture of cheerfulness and animation which made it quite a
pleasure to pass that way.
At any garrisoned point where the line of demarcation between one
country and another is so very narrow as at Niagara, desertion from
the ranks can scarcely fail to be of frequent occurrence: and it
may be reasonably supposed that when the soldiers entertain the
wildest and maddest hopes of the fortune and independence that
await them on the other side, the impulse to play traitor, which
such a place suggests to dishonest minds, is not weakened. But it
very rarely happens that the men who do desert, are happy or
contented afterwards; and many instances have been known in which
they have confessed their grievous disappointment, and their
earnest desire to return to their old service if they could but be
assured of pardon, or lenient treatment. Many of their comrades,
notwithstanding, do the like, from time to time; and instances of
loss of life in the effort to cross the river with this object, are
far from being uncommon. Several men were drowned in the attempt
to swim across, not long ago; and one, who had the madness to trust
himself upon a table as a raft, was swept down to the whirlpool,
where his mangled body eddied round and round some days.
I am inclined to think that the noise of the Falls is very much
exaggerated; and this will appear the more probable when the depth
of the great basin in which the water is received, is taken into
account. At no time during our stay there, was the wind at all
high or boisterous, but we never heard them, three miles off, even
at the very quiet time of sunset, though we often tried.
Queenston, at which place the steamboats start for Toronto (or I
should rather say at which place they call, for their wharf is at
Lewiston, on the opposite shore), is situated in a delicious
valley, through which the Niagara river, in colour a very deep
green, pursues its course. It is approached by a road that takes
its winding way among the heights by which the town is sheltered;
and seen from this point is extremely beautiful and picturesque.
On the most conspicuous of these heights stood a monument erected
by the Provincial Legislature in memory of General Brock, who was
slain in a battle with the American forces, after having won the
victory. Some vagabond, supposed to be a fellow of the name of
Lett, who is now, or who lately was, in prison as a felon, blew up
this monument two years ago, and it is now a melancholy ruin, with
a long fragment of iron railing hanging dejectedly from its top,
and waving to and fro like a wild ivy branch or broken vine stem.
It is of much higher importance than it may seem, that this statue
should be repaired at the public cost, as it ought to have been
long ago. Firstly, because it is beneath the dignity of England to
allow a memorial raised in honour of one of her defenders, to
remain in this condition, on the very spot where he died.
Secondly, because the sight of it in its present state, and the
recollection of the unpunished outrage which brought it to this
pass, is not very likely to soothe down border feelings among
English subjects here, or compose their border quarrels and
dislikes.
I was standing on the wharf at this place, watching the passengers
embarking in a steamboat which preceded that whose coming we
awaited, and participating in the anxiety with which a sergeant's
wife was collecting her few goods together - keeping one distracted
eye hard upon the porters, who were hurrying them on board, and the
other on a hoopless washing-tub for which, as being the most
utterly worthless of all her movables, she seemed to entertain
particular affection - when three or four soldiers with a recruit
came up and went on board.
The recruit was a likely young fellow enough, strongly built and
well made, but by no means sober: indeed he had all the air of a
man who had been more or less drunk for some days. He carried a
small bundle over his shoulder, slung at the end of a walking-
stick, and had a short pipe in his mouth. He was as dusty and
dirty as recruits usually are, and his shoes betokened that he had
travelled on foot some distance, but he was in a very jocose state,
and shook hands with this soldier, and clapped that one on the
back, and talked and laughed continually, like a roaring idle dog
as he was.
The soldiers rather laughed at this blade than with him: seeming
to say, as they stood straightening their canes in their hands, and
looking coolly at him over their glazed stocks, 'Go on, my boy,
while you may! you'll know better by-and-by:' when suddenly the
novice, who had been backing towards the gangway in his noisy
merriment, fell overboard before their eyes, and splashed heavily
down into the river between the vessel and the dock.
I never saw such a good thing as the change that came over these
soldiers in an instant. Almost before the man was down, their
professional manner, their stiffness and constraint, were gone, and
they were filled with the most violent energy. In less time than
is required to tell it, they had him out again, feet first, with
the tails of his coat flapping over his eyes, everything about him
hanging the wrong way, and the water streaming off at every thread
in his threadbare dress. But the moment they set him upright and
found that he was none the worse, they were soldiers again, looking
over their glazed stocks more composedly than ever.
The half-sobered recruit glanced round for a moment, as if his
first impulse were to express some gratitude for his preservation,
but seeing them with this air of total unconcern, and having his
wet pipe presented to him with an oath by the soldier who had been
by far the most anxious of the party, he stuck it in his mouth,
thrust his hands into his moist pockets, and without even shaking
the water off his clothes, walked on board whistling; not to say as
if nothing had happened, but as if he had meant to do it, and it
had been a perfect success.
Our steamboat came up directly this had left the wharf, and soon
bore us to the mouth of the Niagara; where the stars and stripes of
America flutter on one side and the Union Jack of England on the
other: and so narrow is the space between them that the sentinels
in either fort can often hear the watchword of the other country
given. Thence we emerged on Lake Ontario, an inland sea; and by
half-past six o'clock were at Toronto.
The country round this town being very flat, is bare of scenic
interest; but the town itself is full of life and motion, bustle,
business, and improvement. The streets are well paved, and lighted
with gas; the houses are large and good; the shops excellent. Many
of them have a display of goods in their windows, such as may be
seen in thriving county towns in England; and there are some which
would do no discredit to the metropolis itself. There is a good
stone prison here; and there are, besides, a handsome church, a
court-house, public offices, many commodious private residences,
and a government observatory for noting and recording the magnetic
variations. In the College of Upper Canada, which is one of the
public establishments of the city, a sound education in every
department of polite learning can be had, at a very moderate
expense: the annual charge for the instruction of each pupil, not
exceeding nine pounds sterling. It has pretty good endowments in
the way of land, and is a valuable and useful institution.
The first stone of a new college had been laid but a few days
before, by the Governor General. It will be a handsome, spacious
edifice, approached by a long avenue, which is already planted and
made available as a public walk. The town is well adapted for
wholesome exercise at all seasons, for the footways in the
thoroughfares which lie beyond the principal street, are planked
like floors, and kept in very good and clean repair.
It is a matter of deep regret that political differences should
have run high in this place, and led to most discreditable and
disgraceful results. It is not long since guns were discharged
from a window in this town at the successful candidates in an
election, and the coachman of one of them was actually shot in the
body, though not dangerously wounded. But one man was killed on
the same occasion; and from the very window whence he received his
death, the very flag which shielded his murderer (not only in the
commission of his crime, but from its consequences), was displayed
again on the occasion of the public ceremony performed by the
Governor General, to which I have just adverted. Of all the
colours in the rainbow, there is but one which could be so
employed: I need not say that flag was orange.
The time of leaving Toronto for Kingston is noon. By eight o'clock
next morning, the traveller is at the end of his journey, which is
performed by steamboat upon Lake Ontario, calling at Port Hope and
Coburg, the latter a cheerful, thriving little town. Vast
quantities of flour form the chief item in the freight of these
vessels. We had no fewer than one thousand and eighty barrels on
board, between Coburg and Kingston.
The latter place, which is now the seat of government in Canada, is
a very poor town, rendered still poorer in the appearance of its
market-place by the ravages of a recent fire. Indeed, it may be
said of Kingston, that one half of it appears to be burnt down, and
the other half not to be built up. The Government House is neither
elegant nor commodious, yet it is almost the only house of any
importance in the neighbourhood.
There is an admirable jail here, well and wisely governed, and
excellently regulated, in every respect. The men were employed as
shoemakers, ropemakers, blacksmiths, tailors, carpenters, and
stonecutters; and in building a new prison, which was pretty far
advanced towards completion. The female prisoners were occupied in
needlework. Among them was a beautiful girl of twenty, who had
been there nearly three years. She acted as bearer of secret
despatches for the self-styled Patriots on Navy Island, during the
Canadian Insurrection: sometimes dressing as a girl, and carrying
them in her stays; sometimes attiring herself as a boy, and
secreting them in the lining of her hat. In the latter character
she always rode as a boy would, which was nothing to her, for she
could govern any horse that any man could ride, and could drive
four-in-hand with the best whip in those parts. Setting forth on
one of her patriotic missions, she appropriated to herself the
first horse she could lay her hands on; and this offence had
brought her where I saw her. She had quite a lovely face, though,
as the reader may suppose from this sketch of her history, there
was a lurking devil in her bright eye, which looked out pretty
sharply from between her prison bars.
There is a bomb-proof fort here of great strength, which occupies a
bold position, and is capable, doubtless, of doing good service;
though the town is much too close upon the frontier to be long
held, I should imagine, for its present purpose in troubled times.
There is also a small navy-yard, where a couple of Government
steamboats were building, and getting on vigorously.
We left Kingston for Montreal on the tenth of May, at half-past
nine in the morning, and proceeded in a steamboat down the St.
Lawrence river. The beauty of this noble stream at almost any
point, but especially in the commencement of this journey when it
winds its way among the thousand Islands, can hardly be imagined.
The number and constant successions of these islands, all green and
richly wooded; their fluctuating sizes, some so large that for half
an hour together one among them will appear as the opposite bank of
the river, and some so small that they are mere dimples on its
broad bosom; their infinite variety of shapes; and the numberless
combinations of beautiful forms which the trees growing on them
present: all form a picture fraught with uncommon interest and
pleasure.
In the afternoon we shot down some rapids where the river boiled
and bubbled strangely, and where the force and headlong violence of
the current were tremendous. At seven o'clock we reached
Dickenson's Landing, whence travellers proceed for two or three
hours by stage-coach: the navigation of the river being rendered
so dangerous and difficult in the interval, by rapids, that
steamboats do not make the passage. The number and length of those
PORTAGES, over which the roads are bad, and the travelling slow,
render the way between the towns of Montreal and Kingston, somewhat
tedious.
Our course lay over a wide, uninclosed tract of country at a little
distance from the river-side, whence the bright warning lights on
the dangerous parts of the St. Lawrence shone vividly. The night
was dark and raw, and the way dreary enough. It was nearly ten
o'clock when we reached the wharf where the next steamboat lay; and
went on board, and to bed.
She lay there all night, and started as soon as it was day. The
morning was ushered in by a violent thunderstorm, and was very wet,
but gradually improved and brightened up. Going on deck after
breakfast, I was amazed to see floating down with the stream, a
most gigantic raft, with some thirty or forty wooden houses upon
it, and at least as many flag-masts, so that it looked like a
nautical street. I saw many of these rafts afterwards, but never
one so large. All the timber, or 'lumber,' as it is called in
America, which is brought down the St. Lawrence, is floated down in
this manner. When the raft reaches its place of destination, it is
broken up; the materials are sold; and the boatmen return for more.
At eight we landed again, and travelled by a stage-coach for four
hours through a pleasant and well-cultivated country, perfectly
French in every respect: in the appearance of the cottages; the
air, language, and dress of the peasantry; the sign-boards on the
shops and taverns: and the Virgin's shrines, and crosses, by the
wayside. Nearly every common labourer and boy, though he had no
shoes to his feet, wore round his waist a sash of some bright
colour: generally red: and the women, who were working in the
fields and gardens, and doing all kinds of husbandry, wore, one and
all, great flat straw hats with most capacious brims. There were
Catholic Priests and Sisters of Charity in the village streets; and
images of the Saviour at the corners of cross-roads, and in other
public places.
At noon we went on board another steamboat, and reached the village
of Lachine, nine miles from Montreal, by three o'clock. There, we
left the river, and went on by land.
Montreal is pleasantly situated on the margin of the St. Lawrence,
and is backed by some bold heights, about which there are charming
rides and drives. The streets are generally narrow and irregular,
as in most French towns of any age; but in the more modern parts of
the city, they are wide and airy. They display a great variety of
very good shops; and both in the town and suburbs there are many
excellent private dwellings. The granite quays are remarkable for
their beauty, solidity, and extent.
There is a very large Catholic cathedral here, recently erected
with two tall spires, of which one is yet unfinished. In the open
space in front of this edifice, stands a solitary, grim-looking,
square brick tower, which has a quaint and remarkable appearance,
and which the wiseacres of the place have consequently determined
to pull down immediately. The Government House is very superior to
that at Kingston, and the town is full of life and bustle. In one
of the suburbs is a plank road - not footpath - five or six miles
long, and a famous road it is too. All the rides in the vicinity
were made doubly interesting by the bursting out of spring, which
is here so rapid, that it is but a day's leap from barren winter,
to the blooming youth of summer.
The steamboats to Quebec perform the journey in the night; that is
to say, they leave Montreal at six in the evening, and arrive at
Quebec at six next morning. We made this excursion during our stay
in Montreal (which exceeded a fortnight), and were charmed by its
interest and beauty.
The impression made upon the visitor by this Gibraltar of America:
its giddy heights; its citadel suspended, as it were, in the air;
its picturesque steep streets and frowning gateways; and the
splendid views which burst upon the eye at every turn: is at once
unique and lasting.
It is a place not to be forgotten or mixed up in the mind with
other places, or altered for a moment in the crowd of scenes a
traveller can recall. Apart from the realities of this most
picturesque city, there are associations clustering about it which
would make a desert rich in interest. The dangerous precipice
along whose rocky front, Wolfe and his brave companions climbed to
glory; the Plains of Abraham, where he received his mortal wound;
the fortress so chivalrously defended by Montcalm; and his
soldier's grave, dug for him while yet alive, by the bursting of a
shell; are not the least among them, or among the gallant incidents
of history. That is a noble Monument too, and worthy of two great
nations, which perpetuates the memory of both brave generals, and
on which their names are jointly written.
The city is rich in public institutions and in Catholic churches
and charities, but it is mainly in the prospect from the site of
the Old Government House, and from the Citadel, that its surpassing
beauty lies. The exquisite expanse of country, rich in field and
forest, mountain-height and water, which lies stretched out before
the view, with miles of Canadian villages, glancing in long white
streaks, like veins along the landscape; the motley crowd of
gables, roofs, and chimney tops in the old hilly town immediately
at hand; the beautiful St. Lawrence sparkling and flashing in the
sunlight; and the tiny ships below the rock from which you gaze,
whose distant rigging looks like spiders' webs against the light,
while casks and barrels on their decks dwindle into toys, and busy
mariners become so many puppets; all this, framed by a sunken
window in the fortress and looked at from the shadowed room within,
forms one of the brightest and most enchanting pictures that the
eye can rest upon.
In the spring of the year, vast numbers of emigrants who have newly
arrived from England or from Ireland, pass between Quebec and
Montreal on their way to the backwoods and new settlements of
Canada. If it be an entertaining lounge (as I very often found it)
to take a morning stroll upon the quay at Montreal, and see them
grouped in hundreds on the public wharfs about their chests and
boxes, it is matter of deep interest to be their fellow-passenger
on one of these steamboats, and mingling with the concourse, see
and hear them unobserved.
The vessel in which we returned from Quebec to Montreal was crowded
with them, and at night they spread their beds between decks (those
who had beds, at least), and slept so close and thick about our
cabin door, that the passage to and fro was quite blocked up. They
were nearly all English; from Gloucestershire the greater part; and
had had a long winter-passage out; but it was wonderful to see how
clean the children had been kept, and how untiring in their love
and self-denial all the poor parents were.
Cant as we may, and as we shall to the end of all things, it is
very much harder for the poor to be virtuous than it is for the
rich; and the good that is in them, shines the brighter for it. In
many a noble mansion lives a man, the best of husbands and of
fathers, whose private worth in both capacities is justly lauded to
the skies. But bring him here, upon this crowded deck. Strip from
his fair young wife her silken dress and jewels, unbind her braided
hair, stamp early wrinkles on her brow, pinch her pale cheek with
care and much privation, array her faded form in coarsely patched
attire, let there be nothing but his love to set her forth or deck
her out, and you shall put it to the proof indeed. So change his
station in the world, that he shall see in those young things who
climb about his knee: not records of his wealth and name: but
little wrestlers with him for his daily bread; so many poachers on
his scanty meal; so many units to divide his every sum of comfort,
and farther to reduce its small amount. In lieu of the endearments
of childhood in its sweetest aspect, heap upon him all its pains
and wants, its sicknesses and ills, its fretfulness, caprice, and
querulous endurance: let its prattle be, not of engaging infant
fancies, but of cold, and thirst, and hunger: and if his fatherly
affection outlive all this, and he be patient, watchful, tender;
careful of his children's lives, and mindful always of their joys
and sorrows; then send him back to Parliament, and Pulpit, and to
Quarter Sessions, and when he hears fine talk of the depravity of
those who live from hand to mouth, and labour hard to do it, let
him speak up, as one who knows, and tell those holders forth that
they, by parallel with such a class, should be High Angels in their
daily lives, and lay but humble siege to Heaven at last.
Which of us shall say what he would be, if such realities, with
small relief or change all through his days, were his! Looking
round upon these people: far from home, houseless, indigent,
wandering, weary with travel and hard living: and seeing how
patiently they nursed and tended their young children: how they
consulted ever their wants first, then half supplied their own;
what gentle ministers of hope and faith the women were; how the men
profited by their example; and how very, very seldom even a
moment's petulance or harsh complaint broke out among them: I felt
a stronger love and honour of my kind come glowing on my heart, and
wished to God there had been many Atheists in the better part of
human nature there, to read this simple lesson in the book of Life.
* * * * * *
We left Montreal for New York again, on the thirtieth of May,
crossing to La Prairie, on the opposite shore of the St. Lawrence,
in a steamboat; we then took the railroad to St. John's, which is
on the brink of Lake Champlain. Our last greeting in Canada was
from the English officers in the pleasant barracks at that place (a
class of gentlemen who had made every hour of our visit memorable
by their hospitality and friendship); and with 'Rule Britannia'
sounding in our ears, soon left it far behind.
But Canada has held, and always will retain, a foremost place in my
remembrance. Few Englishmen are prepared to find it what it is.
Advancing quietly; old differences settling down, and being fast
forgotten; public feeling and private enterprise alike in a sound
and wholesome state; nothing of flush or fever in its system, but
health and vigour throbbing in its steady pulse: it is full of
hope and promise. To me - who had been accustomed to think of it
as something left behind in the strides of advancing society, as
something neglected and forgotten, slumbering and wasting in its
sleep - the demand for labour and the rates of wages; the busy
quays of Montreal; the vessels taking in their cargoes, and
discharging them; the amount of shipping in the different ports;
the commerce, roads, and public works, all made TO LAST; the
respectability and character of the public journals; and the amount
of rational comfort and happiness which honest industry may earn:
were very great surprises. The steamboats on the lakes, in their
conveniences, cleanliness, and safety; in the gentlemanly character
and bearing of their captains; and in the politeness and perfect
comfort of their social regulations; are unsurpassed even by the
famous Scotch vessels, deservedly so much esteemed at home. The
inns are usually bad; because the custom of boarding at hotels is
not so general here as in the States, and the British officers, who
form a large portion of the society of every town, live chiefly at
the regimental messes: but in every other respect, the traveller
in Canada will find as good provision for his comfort as in any
place I know.
There is one American boat - the vessel which carried us on Lake
Champlain, from St. John's to Whitehall - which I praise very
highly, but no more than it deserves, when I say that it is
superior even to that in which we went from Queenston to Toronto,
or to that in which we travelled from the latter place to Kingston,
or I have no doubt I may add to any other in the world. This
steamboat, which is called the Burlington, is a perfectly exquisite
achievement of neatness, elegance, and order. The decks are
drawing-rooms; the cabins are boudoirs, choicely furnished and
adorned with prints, pictures, and musical instruments; every nook
and corner in the vessel is a perfect curiosity of graceful comfort
and beautiful contrivance. Captain Sherman, her commander, to
whose ingenuity and excellent taste these results are solely
attributable, has bravely and worthily distinguished himself on
more than one trying occasion: not least among them, in having the
moral courage to carry British troops, at a time (during the
Canadian rebellion) when no other conveyance was open to them. He
and his vessel are held in universal respect, both by his own
countrymen and ours; and no man ever enjoyed the popular esteem,
who, in his sphere of action, won and wore it better than this
gentleman.
By means of this floating palace we were soon in the United States
again, and called that evening at Burlington; a pretty town, where
we lay an hour or so. We reached Whitehall, where we were to
disembark, at six next morning; and might have done so earlier, but
that these steamboats lie by for some hours in the night, in
consequence of the lake becoming very narrow at that part of the
journey, and difficult of navigation in the dark. Its width is so
contracted at one point, indeed, that they are obliged to warp
round by means of a rope.
After breakfasting at Whitehall, we took the stage-coach for
Albany: a large and busy town, where we arrived between five and
six o'clock that afternoon; after a very hot day's journey, for we
were now in the height of summer again. At seven we started for
New York on board a great North River steamboat, which was so
crowded with passengers that the upper deck was like the box lobby
of a theatre between the pieces, and the lower one like Tottenham
Court Road on a Saturday night. But we slept soundly,
notwithstanding, and soon after five o'clock next morning reached
New York.
Tarrying here, only that day and night, to recruit after our late
fatigues, we started off once more upon our last journey in
America. We had yet five days to spare before embarking for
England, and I had a great desire to see 'the Shaker Village,'
which is peopled by a religious sect from whom it takes its name.
To this end, we went up the North River again, as far as the town
of Hudson, and there hired an extra to carry us to Lebanon, thirty
miles distant: and of course another and a different Lebanon from
that village where I slept on the night of the Prairie trip.
The country through which the road meandered, was rich and
beautiful; the weather very fine; and for many miles the Kaatskill
mountains, where Rip Van Winkle and the ghostly Dutchmen played at
ninepins one memorable gusty afternoon, towered in the blue
distance, like stately clouds. At one point, as we ascended a
steep hill, athwart whose base a railroad, yet constructing, took
its course, we came upon an Irish colony. With means at hand of
building decent cabins, it was wonderful to see how clumsy, rough,
and wretched, its hovels were. The best were poor protection from
the weather the worst let in the wind and rain through wide
breaches in the roofs of sodden grass, and in the walls of mud;
some had neither door nor window; some had nearly fallen down, and
were imperfectly propped up by stakes and poles; all were ruinous
and filthy. Hideously ugly old women and very buxom young ones,
pigs, dogs, men, children, babies, pots, kettles, dung-hills, vile
refuse, rank straw, and standing water, all wallowing together in
an inseparable heap, composed the furniture of every dark and dirty
hut.
Between nine and ten o'clock at night, we arrived at Lebanon which
is renowned for its warm baths, and for a great hotel, well
adapted, I have no doubt, to the gregarious taste of those seekers
after health or pleasure who repair here, but inexpressibly
comfortless to me. We were shown into an immense apartment,
lighted by two dim candles, called the drawing-room: from which
there was a descent by a flight of steps, to another vast desert,
called the dining-room: our bed-chambers were among certain long
rows of little white-washed cells, which opened from either side of
a dreary passage; and were so like rooms in a prison that I half
expected to be locked up when I went to bed, and listened
involuntarily for the turning of the key on the outside. There
need be baths somewhere in the neighbourhood, for the other washing
arrangements were on as limited a scale as I ever saw, even in
America: indeed, these bedrooms were so very bare of even such
common luxuries as chairs, that I should say they were not provided
with enough of anything, but that I bethink myself of our having
been most bountifully bitten all night.
The house is very pleasantly situated, however, and we had a good
breakfast. That done, we went to visit our place of destination,
which was some two miles off, and the way to which was soon
indicated by a finger-post, whereon was painted, 'To the Shaker
Village.'
As we rode along, we passed a party of Shakers, who were at work
upon the road; who wore the broadest of all broad-brimmed hats; and
were in all visible respects such very wooden men, that I felt
about as much sympathy for them, and as much interest in them, as
if they had been so many figure-heads of ships. Presently we came
to the beginning of the village, and alighting at the door of a
house where the Shaker manufactures are sold, and which is the
headquarters of the elders, requested permission to see the Shaker
worship.
Pending the conveyance of this request to some person in authority,
we walked into a grim room, where several grim hats were hanging on
grim pegs, and the time was grimly told by a grim clock which
uttered every tick with a kind of struggle, as if it broke the grim
silence reluctantly, and under protest. Ranged against the wall
were six or eight stiff, high-backed chairs, and they partook so
strongly of the general grimness that one would much rather have
sat on the floor than incurred the smallest obligation to any of
them.
Presently, there stalked into this apartment, a grim old Shaker,
with eyes as hard, and dull, and cold, as the great round metal
buttons on his coat and waistcoat; a sort of calm goblin. Being
informed of our desire, he produced a newspaper wherein the body of
elders, whereof he was a member, had advertised but a few days
before, that in consequence of certain unseemly interruptions which
their worship had received from strangers, their chapel was closed
to the public for the space of one year.
As nothing was to be urged in opposition to this reasonable
arrangement, we requested leave to make some trifling purchases of
Shaker goods; which was grimly conceded. We accordingly repaired
to a store in the same house and on the opposite side of the
passage, where the stock was presided over by something alive in a
russet case, which the elder said was a woman; and which I suppose
WAS a woman, though I should not have suspected it.
On the opposite side of the road was their place of worship: a
cool, clean edifice of wood, with large windows and green blinds:
like a spacious summer-house. As there was no getting into this
place, and nothing was to be done but walk up and down, and look at
it and the other buildings in the village (which were chiefly of
wood, painted a dark red like English barns, and composed of many
stories like English factories), I have nothing to communicate to
the reader, beyond the scanty results I gleaned the while our
purchases were making,
These people are called Shakers from their peculiar form of
adoration, which consists of a dance, performed by the men and
women of all ages, who arrange themselves for that purpose in
opposite parties: the men first divesting themselves of their hats
and coats, which they gravely hang against the wall before they
begin; and tying a ribbon round their shirt-sleeves, as though they
were going to be bled. They accompany themselves with a droning,
humming noise, and dance until they are quite exhausted,
alternately advancing and retiring in a preposterous sort of trot.
The effect is said to be unspeakably absurd: and if I may judge
from a print of this ceremony which I have in my possession; and
which I am informed by those who have visited the chapel, is
perfectly accurate; it must be infinitely grotesque.
They are governed by a woman, and her rule is understood to be
absolute, though she has the assistance of a council of elders.
She lives, it is said, in strict seclusion, in certain rooms above
the chapel, and is never shown to profane eyes. If she at all
resemble the lady who presided over the store, it is a great
charity to keep her as close as possible, and I cannot too strongly
express my perfect concurrence in this benevolent proceeding.
All the possessions and revenues of the settlement are thrown into
a common stock, which is managed by the elders. As they have made
converts among people who were well to do in the world, and are
frugal and thrifty, it is understood that this fund prospers: the
more especially as they have made large purchases of land. Nor is
this at Lebanon the only Shaker settlement: there are, I think, at
least, three others.
They are good farmers, and all their produce is eagerly purchased
and highly esteemed. 'Shaker seeds,' 'Shaker herbs,' and 'Shaker
distilled waters,' are commonly announced for sale in the shops of
towns and cities. They are good breeders of cattle, and are kind
and merciful to the brute creation. Consequently, Shaker beasts
seldom fail to find a ready market.
They eat and drink together, after the Spartan model, at a great
public table. There is no union of the sexes, and every Shaker,
male and female, is devoted to a life of celibacy. Rumour has been
busy upon this theme, but here again I must refer to the lady of
the store, and say, that if many of the sister Shakers resemble
her, I treat all such slander as bearing on its face the strongest
marks of wild improbability. But that they take as proselytes,
persons so young that they cannot know their own minds, and cannot
possess much strength of resolution in this or any other respect, I
can assert from my own observation of the extreme juvenility of
certain youthful Shakers whom I saw at work among the party on the
road.
They are said to be good drivers of bargains, but to be honest and
just in their transactions, and even in horse-dealing to resist
those thievish tendencies which would seem, for some undiscovered
reason, to be almost inseparable from that branch of traffic. In
all matters they hold their own course quietly, live in their
gloomy, silent commonwealth, and show little desire to interfere
with other people.
This is well enough, but nevertheless I cannot, I confess, incline
towards the Shakers; view them with much favour, or extend towards
them any very lenient construction. I so abhor, and from my soul
detest that bad spirit, no matter by what class or sect it may be
entertained, which would strip life of its healthful graces, rob
youth of its innocent pleasures, pluck from maturity and age their
pleasant ornaments, and make existence but a narrow path towards
the grave: that odious spirit which, if it could have had full
scope and sway upon the earth, must have blasted and made barren
the imaginations of the greatest men, and left them, in their power
of raising up enduring images before their fellow-creatures yet
unborn, no better than the beasts: that, in these very broad-
brimmed hats and very sombre coats - in stiff-necked, solemn-
visaged piety, in short, no matter what its garb, whether it have
cropped hair as in a Shaker village, or long nails as in a Hindoo
temple - I recognise the worst among the enemies of Heaven and
Earth, who turn the water at the marriage feasts of this poor
world, not into wine, but gall. And if there must be people vowed
to crush the harmless fancies and the love of innocent delights and
gaieties, which are a part of human nature: as much a part of it
as any other love or hope that is our common portion: let them,
for me, stand openly revealed among the ribald and licentious; the
very idiots know that THEY are not on the Immortal road, and will
despise them, and avoid them readily.
Leaving the Shaker village with a hearty dislike of the old
Shakers, and a hearty pity for the young ones: tempered by the
strong probability of their running away as they grow older and
wiser, which they not uncommonly do: we returned to Lebanon, and
so to Hudson, by the way we had come upon the previous day. There,
we took the steamboat down the North River towards New York, but
stopped, some four hours' journey short of it, at West Point, where
we remained that night, and all next day, and next night too.
In this beautiful place: the fairest among the fair and lovely
Highlands of the North River: shut in by deep green heights and
ruined forts, and looking down upon the distant town of Newburgh,
along a glittering path of sunlit water, with here and there a
skiff, whose white sail often bends on some new tack as sudden
flaws of wind come down upon her from the gullies in the hills:
hemmed in, besides, all round with memories of Washington, and
events of the revolutionary war: is the Military School of
America.
It could not stand on more appropriate ground, and any ground more
beautiful can hardly be. The course of education is severe, but
well devised, and manly. Through June, July, and August, the young
men encamp upon the spacious plain whereon the college stands; and
all the year their military exercises are performed there, daily.
The term of study at this institution, which the State requires
from all cadets, is four years; but, whether it be from the rigid
nature of the discipline, or the national impatience of restraint,
or both causes combined, not more than half the number who begin
their studies here, ever remain to finish them.
The number of cadets being about equal to that of the members of
Congress, one is sent here from every Congressional district: its
member influencing the selection. Commissions in the service are
distributed on the same principle. The dwellings of the various
Professors are beautifully situated; and there is a most excellent
hotel for strangers, though it has the two drawbacks of being a
total abstinence house (wines and spirits being forbidden to the
students), and of serving the public meals at rather uncomfortable
hours: to wit, breakfast at seven, dinner at one, and supper at
sunset.
The beauty and freshness of this calm retreat, in the very dawn and
greenness of summer - it was then the beginning of June - were
exquisite indeed. Leaving it upon the sixth, and returning to New
York, to embark for England on the succeeding day, I was glad to
think that among the last memorable beauties which had glided past
us, and softened in the bright perspective, were those whose
pictures, traced by no common hand, are fresh in most men's minds;
not easily to grow old, or fade beneath the dust of Time: the
Kaatskill Mountains, Sleepy Hollow, and the Tappaan Zee.
CHAPTER XVI - THE PASSAGE HOME
I NEVER had so much interest before, and very likely I shall never
have so much interest again, in the state of the wind, as on the
long-looked-for morning of Tuesday the Seventh of June. Some
nautical authority had told me a day or two previous, 'anything
with west in it, will do;' so when I darted out of bed at daylight,
and throwing up the window, was saluted by a lively breeze from the
north-west which had sprung up in the night, it came upon me so
freshly, rustling with so many happy associations, that I conceived
upon the spot a special regard for all airs blowing from that
quarter of the compass, which I shall cherish, I dare say, until my
own wind has breathed its last frail puff, and withdrawn itself for
ever from the mortal calendar.
The pilot had not been slow to take advantage of this favourable
weather, and the ship which yesterday had been in such a crowded
dock that she might have retired from trade for good and all, for
any chance she seemed to have of going to sea, was now full sixteen
miles away. A gallant sight she was, when we, fast gaining on her
in a steamboat, saw her in the distance riding at anchor: her tall
masts pointing up in graceful lines against the sky, and every rope
and spar expressed in delicate and thread-like outline: gallant,
too, when, we being all aboard, the anchor came up to the sturdy
chorus 'Cheerily men, oh cheerily!' and she followed proudly in the
towing steamboat's wake: but bravest and most gallant of all, when
the tow-rope being cast adrift, the canvas fluttered from her
masts, and spreading her white wings she soared away upon her free
and solitary course.
In the after cabin we were only fifteen passengers in all, and the
greater part were from Canada, where some of us had known each
other. The night was rough and squally, so were the next two days,
but they flew by quickly, and we were soon as cheerful and snug a
party, with an honest, manly-hearted captain at our head, as ever
came to the resolution of being mutually agreeable, on land or
water.
We breakfasted at eight, lunched at twelve, dined at three, and
took our tea at half-past seven. We had abundance of amusements,
and dinner was not the least among them: firstly, for its own
sake; secondly, because of its extraordinary length: its duration,
inclusive of all the long pauses between the courses, being seldom
less than two hours and a half; which was a subject of never-
failing entertainment. By way of beguiling the tediousness of
these banquets, a select association was formed at the lower end of
the table, below the mast, to whose distinguished president modesty
forbids me to make any further allusion, which, being a very
hilarious and jovial institution, was (prejudice apart) in high
favour with the rest of the community, and particularly with a
black steward, who lived for three weeks in a broad grin at the
marvellous humour of these incorporated worthies.
Then, we had chess for those who played it, whist, cribbage, books,
backgammon, and shovelboard. In all weathers, fair or foul, calm
or windy, we were every one on deck, walking up and down in pairs,
lying in the boats, leaning over the side, or chatting in a lazy
group together. We had no lack of music, for one played the
accordion, another the violin, and another (who usually began at
six o'clock A.M.) the key-bugle: the combined effect of which
instruments, when they all played different tunes in differents
parts of the ship, at the same time, and within hearing of each
other, as they sometimes did (everybody being intensely satisfied
with his own performance), was sublimely hideous.
When all these means of entertainment failed, a sail would heave in
sight: looming, perhaps, the very spirit of a ship, in the misty
distance, or passing us so close that through our glasses we could
see the people on her decks, and easily make out her name, and
whither she was bound. For hours together we could watch the
dolphins and porpoises as they rolled and leaped and dived around
the vessel; or those small creatures ever on the wing, the Mother
Carey's chickens, which had borne us company from New York bay, and
for a whole fortnight fluttered about the vessel's stern. For some
days we had a dead calm, or very light winds, during which the crew
amused themselves with fishing, and hooked an unlucky dolphin, who
expired, in all his rainbow colours, on the deck: an event of such
importance in our barren calendar, that afterwards we dated from
the dolphin, and made the day on which he died, an era.
Besides all this, when we were five or six days out, there began to
be much talk of icebergs, of which wandering islands an unusual
number had been seen by the vessels that had come into New York a
day or two before we left that port, and of whose dangerous
neighbourhood we were warned by the sudden coldness of the weather,
and the sinking of the mercury in the barometer. While these
tokens lasted, a double look-out was kept, and many dismal tales
were whispered after dark, of ships that had struck upon the ice
and gone down in the night; but the wind obliging us to hold a
southward course, we saw none of them, and the weather soon grew
bright and warm again.
The observation every day at noon, and the subsequent working of
the vessel's course, was, as may be supposed, a feature in our
lives of paramount importance; nor were there wanting (as there
never are) sagacious doubters of the captain's calculations, who,
so soon as his back was turned, would, in the absence of compasses,
measure the chart with bits of string, and ends of pocket-
handkerchiefs, and points of snuffers, and clearly prove him to be
wrong by an odd thousand miles or so. It was very edifying to see
these unbelievers shake their heads and frown, and hear them hold
forth strongly upon navigation: not that they knew anything about
it, but that they always mistrusted the captain in calm weather, or
when the wind was adverse. Indeed, the mercury itself is not so
variable as this class of passengers, whom you will see, when the
ship is going nobly through the water, quite pale with admiration,
swearing that the captain beats all captains ever known, and even
hinting at subscriptions for a piece of plate; and who, next
morning, when the breeze has lulled, and all the sails hang useless
in the idle air, shake their despondent heads again, and say, with
screwed-up lips, they hope that captain is a sailor - but they
shrewdly doubt him.
It even became an occupation in the calm, to wonder when the wind
WOULD spring up in the favourable quarter, where, it was clearly
shown by all the rules and precedents, it ought to have sprung up
long ago. The first mate, who whistled for it zealously, was much
respected for his perseverance, and was regarded even by the
unbelievers as a first-rate sailor. Many gloomy looks would be
cast upward through the cabin skylights at the flapping sails while
dinner was in progress; and some, growing bold in ruefulness,
predicted that we should land about the middle of July. There are
always on board ship, a Sanguine One, and a Despondent One. The
latter character carried it hollow at this period of the voyage,
and triumphed over the Sanguine One at every meal, by inquiring
where he supposed the Great Western (which left New York a week
after us) was NOW: and where he supposed the 'Cunard' steam-packet
was NOW: and what he thought of sailing vessels, as compared with
steamships NOW: and so beset his life with pestilent attacks of
that kind, that he too was obliged to affect despondency, for very
peace and quietude.
These were additions to the list of entertaining incidents, but
there was still another source of interest. We carried in the
steerage nearly a hundred passengers: a little world of poverty:
and as we came to know individuals among them by sight, from
looking down upon the deck where they took the air in the daytime,
and cooked their food, and very often ate it too, we became curious
to know their histories, and with what expectations they had gone
out to America, and on what errands they were going home, and what
their circumstances were. The information we got on these heads
from the carpenter, who had charge of these people, was often of
the strangest kind. Some of them had been in America but three
days, some but three months, and some had gone out in the last
voyage of that very ship in which they were now returning home.
Others had sold their clothes to raise the passage-money, and had
hardly rags to cover them; others had no food, and lived upon the
charity of the rest: and one man, it was discovered nearly at the
end of the voyage, not before - for he kept his secret close, and
did not court compassion - had had no sustenance whatever but the
bones and scraps of fat he took from the plates used in the after-
cabin dinner, when they were put out to be washed.
The whole system of shipping and conveying these unfortunate
persons, is one that stands in need of thorough revision. If any
class deserve to be protected and assisted by the Government, it is
that class who are banished from their native land in search of the
bare means of subsistence. All that could be done for these poor
people by the great compassion and humanity of the captain and
officers was done, but they require much more. The law is bound,
at least upon the English side, to see that too many of them are
not put on board one ship: and that their accommodations are
decent: not demoralising, and profligate. It is bound, too, in
common humanity, to declare that no man shall be taken on board
without his stock of provisions being previously inspected by some
proper officer, and pronounced moderately sufficient for his
support upon the voyage. It is bound to provide, or to require
that there be provided, a medical attendant; whereas in these ships
there are none, though sickness of adults, and deaths of children,
on the passage, are matters of the very commonest occurrence.
Above all it is the duty of any Government, be it monarchy or
republic, to interpose and put an end to that system by which a
firm of traders in emigrants purchase of the owners the whole
'tween-decks of a ship, and send on board as many wretched people
as they can lay hold of, on any terms they can get, without the
smallest reference to the conveniences of the steerage, the number
of berths, the slightest separation of the sexes, or anything but
their own immediate profit. Nor is even this the worst of the
vicious system: for, certain crimping agents of these houses, who
have a percentage on all the passengers they inveigle, are
constantly travelling about those districts where poverty and
discontent are rife, and tempting the credulous into more misery,
by holding out monstrous inducements to emigration which can never
be realised.
The history of every family we had on board was pretty much the
same. After hoarding up, and borrowing, and begging, and selling
everything to pay the passage, they had gone out to New York,
expecting to find its streets paved with gold; and had found them
paved with very hard and very real stones. Enterprise was dull;
labourers were not wanted; jobs of work were to be got, but the
payment was not. They were coming back, even poorer than they
went. One of them was carrying an open letter from a young English
artisan, who had been in New York a fortnight, to a friend near
Manchester, whom he strongly urged to follow him. One of the
officers brought it to me as a curiosity. 'This is the country,
Jem,' said the writer. 'I like America. There is no despotism
here; that's the great thing. Employment of all sorts is going a-
begging, and wages are capital. You have only to choose a trade,
Jem, and be it. I haven't made choice of one yet, but I shall
soon. AT PRESENT I HAVEN'T QUITE MADE UP MY MIND WHETHER TO BE A
CARPENTER - OR A TAILOR.'
There was yet another kind of passenger, and but one more, who, in
the calm and the light winds, was a constant theme of conversation
and observation among us. This was an English sailor, a smart,
thorough-built, English man-of-war's-man from his hat to his shoes,
who was serving in the American navy, and having got leave of
absence was on his way home to see his friends. When he presented
himself to take and pay for his passage, it had been suggested to
him that being an able seaman he might as well work it and save the
money, but this piece of advice he very indignantly rejected:
saying, 'He'd be damned but for once he'd go aboard ship, as a
gentleman.' Accordingly, they took his money, but he no sooner
came aboard, than he stowed his kit in the forecastle, arranged to
mess with the crew, and the very first time the hands were turned
up, went aloft like a cat, before anybody. And all through the
passage there he was, first at the braces, outermost on the yards,
perpetually lending a hand everywhere, but always with a sober
dignity in his manner, and a sober grin on his face, which plainly
said, 'I do it as a gentleman. For my own pleasure, mind you!'
At length and at last, the promised wind came up in right good
earnest, and away we went before it, with every stitch of canvas
set, slashing through the water nobly. There was a grandeur in the
motion of the splendid ship, as overshadowed by her mass of sails,
she rode at a furious pace upon the waves, which filled one with an
indescribable sense of pride and exultation. As she plunged into a
foaming valley, how I loved to see the green waves, bordered deep
with white, come rushing on astern, to buoy her upward at their
pleasure, and curl about her as she stooped again, but always own
her for their haughty mistress still! On, on we flew, with
changing lights upon the water, being now in the blessed region of
fleecy skies; a bright sun lighting us by day, and a bright moon by
night; the vane pointing directly homeward, alike the truthful
index to the favouring wind and to our cheerful hearts; until at
sunrise, one fair Monday morning - the twenty-seventh of June, I
shall not easily forget the day - there lay before us, old Cape
Clear, God bless it, showing, in the mist of early morning, like a
cloud: the brightest and most welcome cloud, to us, that ever hid
the face of Heaven's fallen sister - Home.
Dim speck as it was in the wide prospect, it made the sunrise a
more cheerful sight, and gave to it that sort of human interest
which it seems to want at sea. There, as elsewhere, the return of
day is inseparable from some sense of renewed hope and gladness;
but the light shining on the dreary waste of water, and showing it
in all its vast extent of loneliness, presents a solemn spectacle,
which even night, veiling it in darkness and uncertainty, does not
surpass. The rising of the moon is more in keeping with the
solitary ocean; and has an air of melancholy grandeur, which in its
soft and gentle influence, seems to comfort while it saddens. I
recollect when I was a very young child having a fancy that the
reflection of the moon in water was a path to Heaven, trodden by
the spirits of good people on their way to God; and this old
feeling often came over me again, when I watched it on a tranquil
night at sea.
The wind was very light on this same Monday morning, but it was
still in the right quarter, and so, by slow degrees, we left Cape
Clear behind, and sailed along within sight of the coast of
Ireland. And how merry we all were, and how loyal to the George
Washington, and how full of mutual congratulations, and how
venturesome in predicting the exact hour at which we should arrive
at Liverpool, may be easily imagined and readily understood. Also,
how heartily we drank the captain's health that day at dinner; and
how restless we became about packing up: and how two or three of
the most sanguine spirits rejected the idea of going to bed at all
that night as something it was not worth while to do, so near the
shore, but went nevertheless, and slept soundly; and how to be so
near our journey's end, was like a pleasant dream, from which one
feared to wake.
The friendly breeze freshened again next day, and on we went once
more before it gallantly: descrying now and then an English ship
going homeward under shortened sail, while we, with every inch of
canvas crowded on, dashed gaily past, and left her far behind.
Towards evening, the weather turned hazy, with a drizzling rain;
and soon became so thick, that we sailed, as it were, in a cloud.
Still we swept onward like a phantom ship, and many an eager eye
glanced up to where the Look-out on the mast kept watch for
Holyhead.
At length his long-expected cry was heard, and at the same moment
there shone out from the haze and mist ahead, a gleaming light,
which presently was gone, and soon returned, and soon was gone
again. Whenever it came back, the eyes of all on board, brightened
and sparkled like itself: and there we all stood, watching this
revolving light upon the rock at Holyhead, and praising it for its
brightness and its friendly warning, and lauding it, in short,
above all other signal lights that ever were displayed, until it
once more glimmered faintly in the distance, far behind us.
Then, it was time to fire a gun, for a pilot; and almost before its
smoke had cleared away, a little boat with a light at her masthead
came bearing down upon us, through the darkness, swiftly. And
presently, our sails being backed, she ran alongside; and the
hoarse pilot, wrapped and muffled in pea-coats and shawls to the
very bridge of his weather-ploughed-up nose, stood bodily among us
on the deck. And I think if that pilot had wanted to borrow fifty
pounds for an indefinite period on no security, we should have
engaged to lend it to him, among us, before his boat had dropped
astern, or (which is the same thing) before every scrap of news in
the paper he brought with him had become the common property of all
on board.
We turned in pretty late that night, and turned out pretty early
next morning. By six o'clock we clustered on the deck, prepared to
go ashore; and looked upon the spires, and roofs, and smoke, of
Liverpool. By eight we all sat down in one of its Hotels, to eat
and drink together for the last time. And by nine we had shaken
hands all round, and broken up our social company for ever.
The country, by the railroad, seemed, as we rattled through it,
like a luxuriant garden. The beauty of the fields (so small they
looked!), the hedge-rows, and the trees; the pretty cottages, the
beds of flowers, the old churchyards, the antique houses, and every
well-known object; the exquisite delights of that one journey,
crowding in the short compass of a summer's day, the joy of many
years, with the winding up with Home and all that makes it dear; no
tongue can tell, or pen of mine describe.
CHAPTER XVI - SLAVERY
THE upholders of slavery in America - of the atrocities of which
system, I shall not write one word for which I have not had ample
proof and warrant - may be divided into three great classes.
The first, are those more moderate and rational owners of human
cattle, who have come into the possession of them as so many coins
in their trading capital, but who admit the frightful nature of the
Institution in the abstract, and perceive the dangers to society
with which it is fraught: dangers which however distant they may
be, or howsoever tardy in their coming on, are as certain to fall
upon its guilty head, as is the Day of Judgment.
The second, consists of all those owners, breeders, users, buyers
and sellers of slaves, who will, until the bloody chapter has a
bloody end, own, breed, use, buy, and sell them at all hazards:
who doggedly deny the horrors of the system in the teeth of such a
mass of evidence as never was brought to bear on any other subject,
and to which the experience of every day contributes its immense
amount; who would at this or any other moment, gladly involve
America in a war, civil or foreign, provided that it had for its
sole end and object the assertion of their right to perpetuate
slavery, and to whip and work and torture slaves, unquestioned by
any human authority, and unassailed by any human power; who, when
they speak of Freedom, mean the Freedom to oppress their kind, and
to be savage, merciless, and cruel; and of whom every man on his
own ground, in republican America, is a more exacting, and a
sterner, and a less responsible despot than the Caliph Haroun
Alraschid in his angry robe of scarlet.
The third, and not the least numerous or influential, is composed
of all that delicate gentility which cannot bear a superior, and
cannot brook an equal; of that class whose Republicanism means, 'I
will not tolerate a man above me: and of those below, none must
approach too near;' whose pride, in a land where voluntary
servitude is shunned as a disgrace, must be ministered to by
slaves; and whose inalienable rights can only have their growth in
negro wrongs.
It has been sometimes urged that, in the unavailing efforts which
have been made to advance the cause of Human Freedom in the
republic of America (strange cause for history to treat of!),
sufficient regard has not been had to the existence of the first
class of persons; and it has been contended that they are hardly
used, in being confounded with the second. This is, no doubt, the
case; noble instances of pecuniary and personal sacrifice have
already had their growth among them; and it is much to be regretted
that the gulf between them and the advocates of emancipation should
have been widened and deepened by any means: the rather, as there
are, beyond dispute, among these slave-owners, many kind masters
who are tender in the exercise of their unnatural power. Still, it
is to be feared that this injustice is inseparable from the state
of things with which humanity and truth are called upon to deal.
Slavery is not a whit the more endurable because some hearts are to
be found which can partially resist its hardening influences; nor
can the indignant tide of honest wrath stand still, because in its
onward course it overwhelms a few who are comparatively innocent,
among a host of guilty.
The ground most commonly taken by these better men among the
advocates of slavery, is this: 'It is a bad system; and for myself
I would willingly get rid of it, if I could; most willingly. But
it is not so bad, as you in England take it to be. You are
deceived by the representations of the emancipationists. The
greater part of my slaves are much attached to me. You will say
that I do not allow them to be severely treated; but I will put it
to you whether you believe that it can be a general practice to
treat them inhumanly, when it would impair their value, and would
be obviously against the interests of their masters.'
Is it the interest of any man to steal, to game, to waste his
health and mental faculties by drunkenness, to lie, forswear
himself, indulge hatred, seek desperate revenge, or do murder? No.
All these are roads to ruin. And why, then, do men tread them?
Because such inclinations are among the vicious qualities of
mankind. Blot out, ye friends of slavery, from the catalogue of
human passions, brutal lust, cruelty, and the abuse of
irresponsible power (of all earthly temptations the most difficult
to be resisted), and when ye have done so, and not before, we will
inquire whether it be the interest of a master to lash and maim the
slaves, over whose lives and limbs he has an absolute control!
But again: this class, together with that last one I have named,
the miserable aristocracy spawned of a false republic, lift up
their voices and exclaim 'Public opinion is all-sufficient to
prevent such cruelty as you denounce.' Public opinion! Why,
public opinion in the slave States IS slavery, is it not? Public
opinion, in the slave States, has delivered the slaves over, to the
gentle mercies of their masters. Public opinion has made the laws,
and denied the slaves legislative protection. Public opinion has
knotted the lash, heated the branding-iron, loaded the rifle, and
shielded the murderer. Public opinion threatens the abolitionist
with death, if he venture to the South; and drags him with a rope
about his middle, in broad unblushing noon, through the first city
in the East. Public opinion has, within a few years, burned a
slave alive at a slow fire in the city of St. Louis; and public
opinion has to this day maintained upon the bench that estimable
judge who charged the jury, impanelled there to try his murderers,
that their most horrid deed was an act of public opinion, and being
so, must not be punished by the laws the public sentiment had made.
Public opinion hailed this doctrine with a howl of wild applause,
and set the prisoners free, to walk the city, men of mark, and
influence, and station, as they had been before.
Public opinion! what class of men have an immense preponderance
over the rest of the community, in their power of representing
public opinion in the legislature? the slave-owners. They send
from their twelve States one hundred members, while the fourteen
free States, with a free population nearly double, return but a
hundred and forty-two. Before whom do the presidential candidates
bow down the most humbly, on whom do they fawn the most fondly, and
for whose tastes do they cater the most assiduously in their
servile protestations? The slave-owners always.
Public opinion! hear the public opinion of the free South, as
expressed by its own members in the House of Representatives at
Washington. 'I have a great respect for the chair,' quoth North
Carolina, 'I have a great respect for the chair as an officer of
the house, and a great respect for him personally; nothing but that
respect prevents me from rushing to the table and tearing that
petition which has just been presented for the abolition of slavery
in the district of Columbia, to pieces.' - 'I warn the
abolitionists,' says South Carolina, 'ignorant, infuriated
barbarians as they are, that if chance shall throw any of them into
our hands, he may expect a felon's death.' - 'Let an abolitionist
come within the borders of South Carolina,' cries a third; mild
Carolina's colleague; 'and if we can catch him, we will try him,
and notwithstanding the interference of all the governments on
earth, including the Federal government, we will HANG him.'
Public opinion has made this law. - It has declared that in
Washington, in that city which takes its name from the father of
American liberty, any justice of the peace may bind with fetters
any negro passing down the street and thrust him into jail: no
offence on the black man's part is necessary. The justice says, 'I
choose to think this man a runaway:' and locks him up. Public
opinion impowers the man of law when this is done, to advertise the
negro in the newspapers, warning his owner to come and claim him,
or he will be sold to pay the jail fees. But supposing he is a
free black, and has no owner, it may naturally be presumed that he
is set at liberty. No: HE IS SOLD TO RECOMPENSE HIS JAILER. This
has been done again, and again, and again. He has no means of
proving his freedom; has no adviser, messenger, or assistance of
any sort or kind; no investigation into his case is made, or
inquiry instituted. He, a free man, who may have served for years,
and bought his liberty, is thrown into jail on no process, for no
crime, and on no pretence of crime: and is sold to pay the jail
fees. This seems incredible, even of America, but it is the law.
Public opinion is deferred to, in such cases as the following:
which is headed in the newspapers:-
'INTERESTING LAW-CASE.
'An interesting case is now on trial in the Supreme Court, arising
out of the following facts. A gentleman residing in Maryland had
allowed an aged pair of his slaves, substantial though not legal
freedom for several years. While thus living, a daughter was born
to them, who grew up in the same liberty, until she married a free
negro, and went with him to reside in Pennsylvania. They had
several children, and lived unmolested until the original owner
died, when his heir attempted to regain them; but the magistrate
before whom they were brought, decided that he had no jurisdiction
in the case. THE OWNER SEIZED THE WOMAN AND HER CHILDREN ITS THE
NIGHT, AND CARRIED THEM TO MARYLAND.'
'Cash for negroes,' 'cash for negroes,' 'cash for negroes,' is the
heading of advertisements in great capitals down the long columns
of the crowded journals. Woodcuts of a runaway negro with manacled
hands, crouching beneath a bluff pursuer in top boots, who, having
caught him, grasps him by the throat, agreeably diversify the
pleasant text. The leading article protests against 'that
abominable and hellish doctrine of abolition, which is repugnant
alike to every law of God and nature.' The delicate mamma, who
smiles her acquiescence in this sprightly writing as she reads the
paper in her cool piazza, quiets her youngest child who clings
about her skirts, by promising the boy 'a whip to beat the little
niggers with.' - But the negroes, little and big, are protected by
public opinion.
Let us try this public opinion by another test, which is important
in three points of view: first, as showing how desperately timid
of the public opinion slave-owners are, in their delicate
descriptions of fugitive slaves in widely circulated newspapers;
secondly, as showing how perfectly contented the slaves are, and
how very seldom they run away; thirdly, as exhibiting their entire
freedom from scar, or blemish, or any mark of cruel infliction, as
their pictures are drawn, not by lying abolitionists, but by their
own truthful masters.
The following are a few specimens of the advertisements in the
public papers. It is only four years since the oldest among them
appeared; and others of the same nature continue to be published
every day, in shoals.
'Ran away, Negress Caroline. Had on a collar with one prong turned
down.'
'Ran away, a black woman, Betsy. Had an iron bar on her right
leg.'
'Ran away, the negro Manuel. Much marked with irons.'
'Ran away, the negress Fanny. Had on an iron band about her neck.'
'Ran away, a negro boy about twelve years old. Had round his neck
a chain dog-collar with "De Lampert" engraved on it.'
'Ran away, the negro Hown. Has a ring of iron on his left foot.
Also, Grise, HIS WIFE, having a ring and chain on the left leg.'
'Ran away, a negro boy named James. Said boy was ironed when he
left me.'
'Committed to jail, a man who calls his name John. He has a clog
of iron on his right foot which will weigh four or five pounds.'
'Detained at the police jail, the negro wench, Myra. Has several
marks of LASHING, and has irons on her feet.'
'Ran away, a negro woman and two children. A few days before she
went off, I burnt her with a hot iron, on the left side of her
face. I tried to make the letter M.'
'Ran away, a negro man named Henry; his left eye out, some scars
from a dirk on and under his left arm, and much scarred with the
whip.'
'One hundred dollars reward, for a negro fellow, Pompey, 40 years
old. He is branded on the left jaw.'
'Committed to jail, a negro man. Has no toes on the left foot.'
'Ran away, a negro woman named Rachel. Has lost all her toes
except the large one.'
'Ran away, Sam. He was shot a short time since through the hand,
and has several shots in his left arm and side.'
'Ran away, my negro man Dennis. Said negro has been shot in the
left arm between the shoulder and elbow, which has paralysed the
left hand.'
'Ran away, my negro man named Simon. He has been shot badly, in
his back and right arm.'
'Ran away, a negro named Arthur. Has a considerable scar across
his breast and each arm, made by a knife; loves to talk much of the
goodness of God.'
'Twenty-five dollars reward for my man Isaac. He has a scar on his
forehead, caused by a blow; and one on his back, made by a shot
from a pistol.'
'Ran away, a negro girl called Mary. Has a small scar over her
eye, a good many teeth missing, the letter A is branded on her
cheek and forehead.'
'Ran away, negro Ben. Has a scar on his right hand; his thumb and
forefinger being injured by being shot last fall. A part of the
bone came out. He has also one or two large scars on his back and
hips.'
'Detained at the jail, a mulatto, named Tom. Has a scar on the
right cheek, and appears to have been burned with powder on the
face.'
'Ran away, a negro man named Ned. Three of his fingers are drawn
into the palm of his hand by a cut. Has a scar on the back of his
neck, nearly half round, done by a knife.'
'Was committed to jail, a negro man. Says his name is Josiah. His
back very much scarred by the whip; and branded on the thigh and
hips in three or four places, thus (J M). The rim of his right ear
has been bit or cut off.'
'Fifty dollars reward, for my fellow Edward. He has a scar on the
corner of his mouth, two cuts on and under his arm, and the letter
E on his arm.'
'Ran away, negro boy Ellie. Has a scar on one of his arms from the
bite of a dog.'
'Ran away, from the plantation of James Surgette, the following
negroes: Randal, has one ear cropped; Bob, has lost one eye;
Kentucky Tom, has one jaw broken.'
'Ran away, Anthony. One of his ears cut off, and his left hand cut
with an axe.'
'Fifty dollars reward for the negro Jim Blake. Has a piece cut out
of each ear, and the middle finger of the left hand cut off to the
second joint.'
'Ran away, a negro woman named Maria. Has a scar on one side of
her cheek, by a cut. Some scars on her back.'
'Ran away, the Mulatto wench Mary. Has a cut on the left arm, a
scar on the left shoulder, and two upper teeth missing.'
I should say, perhaps, in explanation of this latter piece of
description, that among the other blessings which public opinion
secures to the negroes, is the common practice of violently
punching out their teeth. To make them wear iron collars by day
and night, and to worry them with dogs, are practices almost too
ordinary to deserve mention.
'Ran away, my man Fountain. Has holes in his ears, a scar on the
right side of his forehead, has been shot in the hind part of his
legs, and is marked on the back with the whip.'
'Two hundred and fifty dollars reward for my negro man Jim. He is
much marked with shot in his right thigh. The shot entered on the
outside, halfway between the hip and knee joints.'
'Brought to jail, John. Left ear cropt.'
'Taken up, a negro man. Is very much scarred about the face and
body, and has the left ear bit off.'
'Ran away, a black girl, named Mary. Has a scar on her cheek, and
the end of one of her toes cut off.'
'Ran away, my Mulatto woman, Judy. She has had her right arm
broke.'
'Ran away, my negro man, Levi. His left hand has been burnt, and I
think the end of his forefinger is off.'
'Ran away, a negro man, NAMED WASHINGTON. Has lost a part of his
middle finger, and the end of his little finger.'
'Twenty-five dollars reward for my man John. The tip of his nose
is bit off.'
'Twenty-five dollars reward for the negro slave, Sally. Walks AS
THOUGH crippled in the back.'
'Ran away, Joe Dennis. Has a small notch in one of his ears.'
'Ran away, negro boy, Jack. Has a small crop out of his left ear.'
'Ran away, a negro man, named Ivory. Has a small piece cut out of
the top of each ear.'
While upon the subject of ears, I may observe that a distinguished
abolitionist in New York once received a negro's ear, which had
been cut off close to the head, in a general post letter. It was
forwarded by the free and independent gentleman who had caused it
to be amputated, with a polite request that he would place the
specimen in his 'collection.'
I could enlarge this catalogue with broken arms, and broken legs,
and gashed flesh, and missing teeth, and lacerated backs, and bites
of dogs, and brands of red-hot irons innumerable: but as my
readers will be sufficiently sickened and repelled already, I will
turn to another branch of the subject.
These advertisements, of which a similar collection might be made
for every year, and month, and week, and day; and which are coolly
read in families as things of course, and as a part of the current
news and small-talk; will serve to show how very much the slaves
profit by public opinion, and how tender it is in their behalf.
But it may be worth while to inquire how the slave-owners, and the
class of society to which great numbers of them belong, defer to
public opinion in their conduct, not to their slaves but to each
other; how they are accustomed to restrain their passions; what
their bearing is among themselves; whether they are fierce or
gentle; whether their social customs be brutal, sanguinary, and
violent, or bear the impress of civilisation and refinement.
That we may have no partial evidence from abolitionists in this
inquiry, either, I will once more turn to their own newspapers, and
I will confine myself, this time, to a selection from paragraphs
which appeared from day to day, during my visit to America, and
which refer to occurrences happening while I was there. The
italics in these extracts, as in the foregoing, are my own.
These cases did not ALL occur, it will be seen, in territory
actually belonging to legalised Slave States, though most, and
those the very worst among them did, as their counterparts
constantly do; but the position of the scenes of action in
reference to places immediately at hand, where slavery is the law;
and the strong resemblance between that class of outrages and the
rest; lead to the just presumption that the character of the
parties concerned was formed in slave districts, and brutalised by
slave customs.
'HORRIBLE TRAGEDY.
'By a slip from THE SOUTHPORT TELEGRAPH, Wisconsin, we learn that
the Hon. Charles C. P. Arndt, Member of the Council for Brown
county, was shot dead ON THE FLOOR OF THE COUNCIL CHAMBER, by James
R. Vinyard, Member from Grant county. THE AFFAIR grew out of a
nomination for Sheriff of Grant county. Mr. E. S. Baker was
nominated and supported by Mr. Arndt. This nomination was opposed
by Vinyard, who wanted the appointment to vest in his own brother.
In the course of debate, the deceased made some statements which
Vinyard pronounced false, and made use of violent and insulting
language, dealing largely in personalities, to which Mr. A. made no
reply. After the adjournment, Mr. A. stepped up to Vinyard, and
requested him to retract, which he refused to do, repeating the
offensive words. Mr. Arndt then made a blow at Vinyard, who
stepped back a pace, drew a pistol, and shot him dead.
'The issue appears to have been provoked on the part of Vinyard,
who was determined at all hazards to defeat the appointment of
Baker, and who, himself defeated, turned his ire and revenge upon
the unfortunate Arndt.'
'THE WISCONSIN TRAGEDY.
Public indignation runs high in the territory of Wisconsin, in
relation to the murder of C. C. P. Arndt, in the Legislative Hall
of the Territory. Meetings have been held in different counties of
Wisconsin, denouncing THE PRACTICE OF SECRETLY BEARING ARMS IN THE
LEGISLATIVE CHAMBERS OF THE COUNTRY. We have seen the account of
the expulsion of James R. Vinyard, the perpetrator of the bloody
deed, and are amazed to hear, that, after this expulsion by those
who saw Vinyard kill Mr. Arndt in the presence of his aged father,
who was on a visit to see his son, little dreaming that he was to
witness his murder, JUDGE DUNN HAS DISCHARGED VINYARD ON BAIL. The
Miners' Free Press speaks IN TERMS OF MERITED REBUKE at the outrage
upon the feelings of the people of Wisconsin. Vinyard was within
arm's length of Mr. Arndt, when he took such deadly aim at him,
that he never spoke. Vinyard might at pleasure, being so near,
have only wounded him, but he chose to kill him.'
'MURDER.
By a letter in a St. Louis paper of the '4th, we notice a terrible
outrage at Burlington, Iowa. A Mr. Bridgman having had a
difficulty with a citizen of the place, Mr. Ross; a brother-in-law
of the latter provided himself with one of Colt's revolving
pistols, met Mr. B. in the street, AND DISCHARGED THE CONTENTS OF
FIVE OF THE BARRELS AT HIM: EACH SHOT TAKING EFFECT. Mr. B.,
though horribly wounded, and dying, returned the fire, and killed
Ross on the spot.'
'TERRIBLE DEATH OF ROBERT POTTER.
'From the "Caddo Gazette," of the 12th inst., we learn the
frightful death of Colonel Robert Potter. . . . He was beset in his
house by an enemy, named Rose. He sprang from his couch, seized
his gun, and, in his night-clothes, rushed from the house. For
about two hundred yards his speed seemed to defy his pursuers; but,
getting entangled in a thicket, he was captured. Rose told him
THAT HE INTENDED TO ACT A GENEROUS PART, and give him a chance for
his life. He then told Potter he might run, and he should not be
interrupted till he reached a certain distance. Potter started at
the word of command, and before a gun was fired he had reached the
lake. His first impulse was to jump in the water and dive for it,
which he did. Rose was close behind him, and formed his men on the
bank ready to shoot him as he rose. In a few seconds he came up to
breathe; and scarce had his head reached the surface of the water
when it was completely riddled with the shot of their guns, and he
sunk, to rise no more!'
'MURDER IN ARKANSAS.
'We understand THAT A SEVERE RENCONTRE CAME OFF a few days since in
the Seneca Nation, between Mr. Loose, the sub-agent of the mixed
band of the Senecas, Quapaw, and Shawnees, and Mr. James Gillespie,
of the mercantile firm of Thomas G. Allison and Co., of Maysville,
Benton, County Ark, in which the latter was slain with a bowie-
knife. Some difficulty had for some time existed between the
parties. It is said that Major Gillespie brought on the attack
with a cane. A severe conflict ensued, during which two pistols
were fired by Gillespie and one by Loose. Loose then stabbed
Gillespie with one of those never-failing weapons, a bowie-knife.
The death of Major G. is much regretted, as he was a liberal-minded
and energetic man. Since the above was in type, we have learned
that Major Allison has stated to some of our citizens in town that
Mr. Loose gave the first blow. We forbear to give any particulars,
as THE MATTER WILL BE THE SUBJECT OF JUDICIAL INVESTIGATION.'
'FOUL DEED.
The steamer Thames, just from Missouri river, brought us a
handbill, offering a reward of 500 dollars, for the person who
assassinated Lilburn W. Baggs, late Governor of this State, at
Independence, on the night of the 6th inst. Governor Baggs, it is
stated in a written memorandum, was not dead, but mortally wounded.
'Since the above was written, we received a note from the clerk of
the Thames, giving the following particulars. Gov. Baggs was shot
by some villain on Friday, 6th inst., in the evening, while sitting
in a room in his own house in Independence. His son, a boy,
hearing a report, ran into the room, and found the Governor sitting
in his chair, with his jaw fallen down, and his head leaning back;
on discovering the injury done to his father, he gave the alarm.
Foot tracks were found in the garden below the window, and a pistol
picked up supposed to have been overloaded, and thrown from the
hand of the scoundrel who fired it. Three buck shots of a heavy
load, took effect; one going through his mouth, one into the brain,
and another probably in or near the brain; all going into the back
part of the neck and head. The Governor was still alive on the
morning of the 7th; but no hopes for his recovery by his friends,
and but slight hopes from his physicians.
'A man was suspected, and the Sheriff most probably has possession
of him by this time.
'The pistol was one of a pair stolen some days previous from a
baker in Independence, and the legal authorities have the
description of the other.'
'RENCONTRE.
'An unfortunate AFFAIR took place on Friday evening in Chatres
Street, in which one of our most respectable citizens received a
dangerous wound, from a poignard, in the abdomen. From the Bee
(New Orleans) of yesterday, we learn the following particulars. It
appears that an article was published in the French side of the
paper on Monday last, containing some strictures on the Artillery
Battalion for firing their guns on Sunday morning, in answer to
those from the Ontario and Woodbury, and thereby much alarm was
caused to the families of those persons who were out all night
preserving the peace of the city. Major C. Gally, Commander of the
battalion, resenting this, called at the office and demanded the
author's name; that of Mr. P. Arpin was given to him, who was
absent at the time. Some angry words then passed with one of the
proprietors, and a challenge followed; the friends of both parties
tried to arrange the affair, but failed to do so. On Friday
evening, about seven o'clock, Major Gally met Mr. P. Arpin in
Chatres Street, and accosted him. "Are you Mr. Arpin?"
'"Yes, sir."
'"Then I have to tell you that you are a - " (applying an
appropriate epithet).
'"I shall remind you of your words, sir."
'"But I have said I would break my cane on your shoulders."
'"I know it, but I have not yet received the blow."
'At these words, Major Gally, having a cane in his hands, struck
Mr. Arpin across the face, and the latter drew a poignard from his
pocket and stabbed Major Gally in the abdomen.
'Fears are entertained that the wound will be mortal. WE
UNDERSTAND THAT MR. ARPIN HAS GIVEN SECURITY FOR HIS APPEARANCE AT
THE CRIMINAL COURT TO ANSWER THE CHARGE.'
'AFFRAY IN MISSISSIPPI.
'On the 27th ult., in an affray near Carthage, Leake county,
Mississippi, between James Cottingham and John Wilburn, the latter
was shot by the former, and so horribly wounded, that there was no
hope of his recovery. On the 2nd instant, there was an affray at
Carthage between A. C. Sharkey and George Goff, in which the latter
was shot, and thought mortally wounded. Sharkey delivered himself
up to the authorities, BUT CHANGED HIS MIND AND ESCAPED!'
'PERSONAL ENCOUNTER.
'An encounter took place in Sparta, a few days since, between the
barkeeper of an hotel, and a man named Bury. It appears that Bury
had become somewhat noisy, AND THAT THE BARKEEPER, DETERMINED TO
PRESERVE ORDER, HAD THREATENED TO SHOOT BURY, whereupon Bury drew a
pistol and shot the barkeeper down. He was not dead at the last
accounts, but slight hopes were entertained of his recovery.'
'DUEL.
'The clerk of the steamboat TRIBUNE informs us that another duel
was fought on Tuesday last, by Mr. Robbins, a bank officer in
Vicksburg, and Mr. Fall, the editor of the Vicksburg Sentinel.
According to the arrangement, the parties had six pistols each,
which, after the word "Fire!" THEY WERE TO DISCHARGE AS FAST AS
THEY PLEASED. Fall fired two pistols without effect. Mr. Robbins'
first shot took effect in Fall's thigh, who fell, and was unable to
continue the combat.'
'AFFRAY IN CLARKE COUNTY.
'An UNFORTUNATE AFFRAY occurred in Clarke county (MO.), near
Waterloo, on Tuesday the 19th ult., which originated in settling
the partnership concerns of Messrs. M'Kane and M'Allister, who had
been engaged in the business of distilling, and resulted in the
death of the latter, who was shot down by Mr. M'Kane, because of
his attempting to take possession of seven barrels of whiskey, the
property of M'Kane, which had been knocked off to M'Allister at a
sheriff's sale at one dollar per barrel. M'Kane immediately fled
AND AT THE LATEST DATES HAD NOT BEEN TAKEN.
'THIS UNFORTUNATE AFFRAY caused considerable excitement in the
neighbourhood, as both the parties were men with large families
depending upon them and stood well in the community.'
I will quote but one more paragraph, which, by reason of its
monstrous absurdity, may be a relief to these atrocious deeds.
'AFFAIR OF HONOUR.
'We have just heard the particulars of a meeting which took place
on Six Mile Island, on Tuesday, between two young bloods of our
city: Samuel Thurston, AGED FIFTEEN, and William Hine, AGED
THIRTEEN years. They were attended by young gentlemen of the same
age. The weapons used on the occasion, were a couple of Dickson's
best rifles; the distance, thirty yards. They took one fire,
without any damage being sustained by either party, except the ball
of Thurston's gun passing through the crown of Hine's hat. THROUGH
THE INTERCESSION OF THE BOARD OF HONOUR, the challenge was
withdrawn, and the difference amicably adjusted.'
If the reader will picture to himself the kind of Board of Honour
which amicably adjusted the difference between these two little
boys, who in any other part of the world would have been amicably
adjusted on two porters' backs and soundly flogged with birchen
rods, he will be possessed, no doubt, with as strong a sense of its
ludicrous character, as that which sets me laughing whenever its
image rises up before me.
Now, I appeal to every human mind, imbued with the commonest of
common sense, and the commonest of common humanity; to all
dispassionate, reasoning creatures, of any shade of opinion; and
ask, with these revolting evidences of the state of society which
exists in and about the slave districts of America before them, can
they have a doubt of the real condition of the slave, or can they
for a moment make a compromise between the institution or any of
its flagrant, fearful features, and their own just consciences?
Will they say of any tale of cruelty and horror, however aggravated
in degree, that it is improbable, when they can turn to the public
prints, and, running, read such signs as these, laid before them by
the men who rule the slaves: in their own acts and under their own
hands?
Do we not know that the worst deformity and ugliness of slavery are
at once the cause and the effect of the reckless license taken by
these freeborn outlaws? Do we not know that the man who has been
born and bred among its wrongs; who has seen in his childhood
husbands obliged at the word of command to flog their wives; women,
indecently compelled to hold up their own garments that men might
lay the heavier stripes upon their legs, driven and harried by
brutal overseers in their time of travail, and becoming mothers on
the field of toil, under the very lash itself; who has read in
youth, and seen his virgin sisters read, descriptions of runaway
men and women, and their disfigured persons, which could not be
published elsewhere, of so much stock upon a farm, or at a show of
beasts:- do we not know that that man, whenever his wrath is
kindled up, will be a brutal savage? Do we not know that as he is
a coward in his domestic life, stalking among his shrinking men and
women slaves armed with his heavy whip, so he will be a coward out
of doors, and carrying cowards' weapons hidden in his breast, will
shoot men down and stab them when he quarrels? And if our reason
did not teach us this and much beyond; if we were such idiots as to
close our eyes to that fine mode of training which rears up such
men; should we not know that they who among their equals stab and
pistol in the legislative halls, and in the counting-house, and on
the marketplace, and in all the elsewhere peaceful pursuits of
life, must be to their dependants, even though they were free
servants, so many merciless and unrelenting tyrants?
What! shall we declaim against the ignorant peasantry of Ireland,
and mince the matter when these American taskmasters are in
question? Shall we cry shame on the brutality of those who
hamstring cattle: and spare the lights of Freedom upon earth who
notch the ears of men and women, cut pleasant posies in the
shrinking flesh, learn to write with pens of red-hot iron on the
human face, rack their poetic fancies for liveries of mutilation
which their slaves shall wear for life and carry to the grave,
breaking living limbs as did the soldiery who mocked and slew the
Saviour of the world, and set defenceless creatures up for targets!
Shall we whimper over legends of the tortures practised on each
other by the Pagan Indians, and smile upon the cruelties of
Christian men! Shall we, so long as these things last, exult above
the scattered remnants of that race, and triumph in the white
enjoyment of their possessions? Rather, for me, restore the forest
and the Indian village; in lieu of stars and stripes, let some poor
feather flutter in the breeze; replace the streets and squares by
wigwams; and though the death-song of a hundred haughty warriors
fill the air, it will be music to the shriek of one unhappy slave.
On one theme, which is commonly before our eyes, and in respect of
which our national character is changing fast, let the plain Truth
be spoken, and let us not, like dastards, beat about the bush by
hinting at the Spaniard and the fierce Italian. When knives are
drawn by Englishmen in conflict let it be said and known: 'We owe
this change to Republican Slavery. These are the weapons of
Freedom. With sharp points and edges such as these, Liberty in
America hews and hacks her slaves; or, failing that pursuit, her
sons devote them to a better use, and turn them on each other.'
CHAPTER XVIII - CONCLUDING REMARKS
THERE are many passages in this book, where I have been at some
pains to resist the temptation of troubling my readers with my own
deductions and conclusions: preferring that they should judge for
themselves, from such premises as I have laid before them. My only
object in the outset, was, to carry them with me faithfully
wheresoever I went: and that task I have discharged.
But I may be pardoned, if on such a theme as the general character
of the American people, and the general character of their social
system, as presented to a stranger's eyes, I desire to express my
own opinions in a few words, before I bring these volumes to a
close.
They are, by nature, frank, brave, cordial, hospitable, and
affectionate. Cultivation and refinement seem but to enhance their
warmth of heart and ardent enthusiasm; and it is the possession of
these latter qualities in a most remarkable degree, which renders
an educated American one of the most endearing and most generous of
friends. I never was so won upon, as by this class; never yielded
up my full confidence and esteem so readily and pleasurably, as to
them; never can make again, in half a year, so many friends for
whom I seem to entertain the regard of half a life.
These qualities are natural, I implicitly believe, to the whole
people. That they are, however, sadly sapped and blighted in their
growth among the mass; and that there are influences at work which
endanger them still more, and give but little present promise of
their healthy restoration; is a truth that ought to be told.
It is an essential part of every national character to pique itself
mightily upon its faults, and to deduce tokens of its virtue or its
wisdom from their very exaggeration. One great blemish in the
popular mind of America, and the prolific parent of an innumerable
brood of evils, is Universal Distrust. Yet the American citizen
plumes himself upon this spirit, even when he is sufficiently
dispassionate to perceive the ruin it works; and will often adduce
it, in spite of his own reason, as an instance of the great
sagacity and acuteness of the people, and their superior shrewdness
and independence.
'You carry,' says the stranger, 'this jealousy and distrust into
every transaction of public life. By repelling worthy men from
your legislative assemblies, it has bred up a class of candidates
for the suffrage, who, in their very act, disgrace your
Institutions and your people's choice. It has rendered you so
fickle, and so given to change, that your inconstancy has passed
into a proverb; for you no sooner set up an idol firmly, than you
are sure to pull it down and dash it into fragments: and this,
because directly you reward a benefactor, or a public servant, you
distrust him, merely because he is rewarded; and immediately apply
yourselves to find out, either that you have been too bountiful in
your acknowledgments, or he remiss in his deserts. Any man who
attains a high place among you, from the President downwards, may
date his downfall from that moment; for any printed lie that any
notorious villain pens, although it militate directly against the
character and conduct of a life, appeals at once to your distrust,
and is believed. You will strain at a gnat in the way of
trustfulness and confidence, however fairly won and well deserved;
but you will swallow a whole caravan of camels, if they be laden
with unworthy doubts and mean suspicions. Is this well, think you,
or likely to elevate the character of the governors or the
governed, among you?'
The answer is invariably the same: 'There's freedom of opinion
here, you know. Every man thinks for himself, and we are not to be
easily overreached. That's how our people come to be suspicious.'
Another prominent feature is the love of 'smart' dealing: which
gilds over many a swindle and gross breach of trust; many a
defalcation, public and private; and enables many a knave to hold
his head up with the best, who well deserves a halter; though it
has not been without its retributive operation, for this smartness
has done more in a few years to impair the public credit, and to
cripple the public resources, than dull honesty, however rash,
could have effected in a century. The merits of a broken
speculation, or a bankruptcy, or of a successful scoundrel, are not
gauged by its or his observance of the golden rule, 'Do as you
would be done by,' but are considered with reference to their
smartness. I recollect, on both occasions of our passing that ill-
fated Cairo on the Mississippi, remarking on the bad effects such
gross deceits must have when they exploded, in generating a want of
confidence abroad, and discouraging foreign investment: but I was
given to understand that this was a very smart scheme by which a
deal of money had been made: and that its smartest feature was,
that they forgot these things abroad, in a very short time, and
speculated again, as freely as ever. The following dialogue I have
held a hundred times: 'Is it not a very disgraceful circumstance
that such a man as So-and-so should be acquiring a large property
by the most infamous and odious means, and notwithstanding all the
crimes of which he has been guilty, should be tolerated and abetted
by your Citizens? He is a public nuisance, is he not?' 'Yes,
sir.' 'A convicted liar?' 'Yes, sir.' 'He has been kicked, and
cuffed, and caned?' 'Yes, sir.' 'And he is utterly dishonourable,
debased, and profligate?' 'Yes, sir.' 'In the name of wonder,
then, what is his merit?' 'Well, sir, he is a smart man.'
In like manner, all kinds of deficient and impolitic usages are
referred to the national love of trade; though, oddly enough, it
would be a weighty charge against a foreigner that he regarded the
Americans as a trading people. The love of trade is assigned as a
reason for that comfortless custom, so very prevalent in country
towns, of married persons living in hotels, having no fireside of
their own, and seldom meeting from early morning until late at
night, but at the hasty public meals. The love of trade is a
reason why the literature of America is to remain for ever
unprotected 'For we are a trading people, and don't care for
poetry:' though we DO, by the way, profess to be very proud of our
poets: while healthful amusements, cheerful means of recreation,
and wholesome fancies, must fade before the stern utilitarian joys
of trade.
These three characteristics are strongly presented at every turn,
full in the stranger's view. But, the foul growth of America has a
more tangled root than this; and it strikes its fibres, deep in its
licentious Press.
Schools may be erected, East, West, North, and South; pupils be
taught, and masters reared, by scores upon scores of thousands;
colleges may thrive, churches may be crammed, temperance may be
diffused, and advancing knowledge in all other forms walk through
the land with giant strides: but while the newspaper press of
America is in, or near, its present abject state, high moral
improvement in that country is hopeless. Year by year, it must and
will go back; year by year, the tone of public feeling must sink
lower down; year by year, the Congress and the Senate must become
of less account before all decent men; and year by year, the memory
of the Great Fathers of the Revolution must be outraged more and
more, in the bad life of their degenerate child.
Among the herd of journals which are published in the States, there
are some, the reader scarcely need be told, of character and
credit. From personal intercourse with accomplished gentlemen
connected with publications of this class, I have derived both
pleasure and profit. But the name of these is Few, and of the
others Legion; and the influence of the good, is powerless to
counteract the moral poison of the bad.
Among the gentry of America; among the well-informed and moderate:
in the learned professions; at the bar and on the bench: there is,
as there can be, but one opinion, in reference to the vicious
character of these infamous journals. It is sometimes contended -
I will not say strangely, for it is natural to seek excuses for
such a disgrace - that their influence is not so great as a visitor
would suppose. I must be pardoned for saying that there is no
warrant for this plea, and that every fact and circumstance tends
directly to the opposite conclusion.
When any man, of any grade of desert in intellect or character, can
climb to any public distinction, no matter what, in America,
without first grovelling down upon the earth, and bending the knee
before this monster of depravity; when any private excellence is
safe from its attacks; when any social confidence is left unbroken
by it, or any tie of social decency and honour is held in the least
regard; when any man in that free country has freedom of opinion,
and presumes to think for himself, and speak for himself, without
humble reference to a censorship which, for its rampant ignorance
and base dishonesty, he utterly loathes and despises in his heart;
when those who most acutely feel its infamy and the reproach it
casts upon the nation, and who most denounce it to each other, dare
to set their heels upon, and crush it openly, in the sight of all
men: then, I will believe that its influence is lessening, and men
are returning to their manly senses. But while that Press has its
evil eye in every house, and its black hand in every appointment in
the state, from a president to a postman; while, with ribald
slander for its only stock in trade, it is the standard literature
of an enormous class, who must find their reading in a newspaper,
or they will not read at all; so long must its odium be upon the
country's head, and so long must the evil it works, be plainly
visible in the Republic.
To those who are accustomed to the leading English journals, or to
the respectable journals of the Continent of Europe; to those who
are accustomed to anything else in print and paper; it would be
impossible, without an amount of extract for which I have neither
space nor inclination, to convey an adequate idea of this frightful
engine in America. But if any man desire confirmation of my
statement on this head, let him repair to any place in this city of
London, where scattered numbers of these publications are to be
found; and there, let him form his own opinion. (1)
It would be well, there can be no doubt, for the American people as
a whole, if they loved the Real less, and the Ideal somewhat more.
It would be well, if there were greater encouragement to lightness
of heart and gaiety, and a wider cultivation of what is beautiful,
without being eminently and directly useful. But here, I think the
general remonstrance, 'we are a new country,' which is so often
advanced as an excuse for defects which are quite unjustifiable, as
being, of right, only the slow growth of an old one, may be very
reasonably urged: and I yet hope to hear of there being some other
national amusement in the United States, besides newspaper
politics.
They certainly are not a humorous people, and their temperament
always impressed me is being of a dull and gloomy character. In
shrewdness of remark, and a certain cast-iron quaintness, the
Yankees, or people of New England, unquestionably take the lead; as
they do in most other evidences of intelligence. But in travelling
about, out of the large cities - as I have remarked in former parts
of these volumes - I was quite oppressed by the prevailing
seriousness and melancholy air of business: which was so general
and unvarying, that at every new town I came to, I seemed to meet
the very same people whom I had left behind me, at the last. Such
defects as are perceptible in the national manners, seem, to me, to
be referable, in a great degree, to this cause: which has
generated a dull, sullen persistence in coarse usages, and rejected
the graces of life as undeserving of attention. There is no doubt
that Washington, who was always most scrupulous and exact on points
of ceremony, perceived the tendency towards this mistake, even in
his time, and did his utmost to correct it.
I cannot hold with other writers on these subjects that the
prevalence of various forms of dissent in America, is in any way
attributable to the non-existence there of an established church:
indeed, I think the temper of the people, if it admitted of such an
Institution being founded amongst them, would lead them to desert
it, as a matter of course, merely because it WAS established. But,
supposing it to exist, I doubt its probable efficacy in summoning
the wandering sheep to one great fold, simply because of the
immense amount of dissent which prevails at home; and because I do
not find in America any one form of religion with which we in
Europe, or even in England, are unacquainted. Dissenters resort
thither in great numbers, as other people do, simply because it is
a land of resort; and great settlements of them are founded,
because ground can be purchased, and towns and villages reared,
where there were none of the human creation before. But even the
Shakers emigrated from England; our country is not unknown to Mr.
Joseph Smith, the apostle of Mormonism, or to his benighted
disciples; I have beheld religious scenes myself in some of our
populous towns which can hardly be surpassed by an American camp-
meeting; and I am not aware that any instance of superstitious
imposture on the one hand, and superstitious credulity on the
other, has had its origin in the United States, which we cannot
more than parallel by the precedents of Mrs. Southcote, Mary Tofts
the rabbit-breeder, or even Mr. Thorn of Canterbury: which latter
case arose, some time after the dark ages had passed away.
The Republican Institutions of America undoubtedly lead the people
to assert their self-respect and their equality; but a traveller is
bound to bear those Institutions in his mind, and not hastily to
resent the near approach of a class of strangers, who, at home,
would keep aloof. This characteristic, when it was tinctured with
no foolish pride, and stopped short of no honest service, never
offended me; and I very seldom, if ever, experienced its rude or
unbecoming display. Once or twice it was comically developed, as
in the following case; but this was an amusing incident, and not
the rule, or near it.
I wanted a pair of boots at a certain town, for I had none to
travel in, but those with the memorable cork soles, which were much
too hot for the fiery decks of a steamboat. I therefore sent a
message to an artist in boots, importing, with my compliments, that
I should be happy to see him, if he would do me the polite favour
to call. He very kindly returned for answer, that he would 'look
round' at six o'clock that evening.
I was lying on the sofa, with a book and a wine-glass, at about
that time, when the door opened, and a gentleman in a stiff cravat,
within a year or two on either side of thirty, entered, in his hat
and gloves; walked up to the looking-glass; arranged his hair; took
off his gloves; slowly produced a measure from the uttermost depths
of his coat-pocket; and requested me, in a languid tone, to 'unfix'
my straps. I complied, but looked with some curiosity at his hat,
which was still upon his head. It might have been that, or it
might have been the heat - but he took it off. Then, he sat
himself down on a chair opposite to me; rested an arm on each knee;
and, leaning forward very much, took from the ground, by a great
effort, the specimen of metropolitan workmanship which I had just
pulled off: whistling, pleasantly, as he did so. He turned it
over and over; surveyed it with a contempt no language can express;
and inquired if I wished him to fix me a boot like THAT? I
courteously replied, that provided the boots were large enough, I
would leave the rest to him; that if convenient and practicable, I
should not object to their bearing some resemblance to the model
then before him; but that I would be entirely guided by, and would
beg to leave the whole subject to, his judgment and discretion.
'You an't partickler, about this scoop in the heel, I suppose
then?' says he: 'we don't foller that, here.' I repeated my last
observation. He looked at himself in the glass again; went closer
to it to dash a grain or two of dust out of the corner of his eye;
and settled his cravat. All this time, my leg and foot were in the
air. 'Nearly ready, sir?' I inquired. 'Well, pretty nigh,' he
said; 'keep steady.' I kept as steady as I could, both in foot and
face; and having by this time got the dust out, and found his
pencil-case, he measured me, and made the necessary notes. When he
had finished, he fell into his old attitude, and taking up the boot
again, mused for some time. 'And this,' he said, at last, 'is an
English boot, is it? This is a London boot, eh?' 'That, sir,' I
replied, 'is a London boot.' He mused over it again, after the
manner of Hamlet with Yorick's skull; nodded his head, as who
should say, 'I pity the Institutions that led to the production of
this boot!'; rose; put up his pencil, notes, and paper - glancing
at himself in the glass, all the time - put on his hat - drew on
his gloves very slowly; and finally walked out. When he had been
gone about a minute, the door reopened, and his hat and his head
reappeared. He looked round the room, and at the boot again, which
was still lying on the floor; appeared thoughtful for a minute; and
then said 'Well, good arternoon.' 'Good afternoon, sir,' said I:
and that was the end of the interview.
There is but one other head on which I wish to offer a remark; and
that has reference to the public health. In so vast a country,
where there are thousands of millions of acres of land yet
unsettled and uncleared, and on every rood of which, vegetable
decomposition is annually taking place; where there are so many
great rivers, and such opposite varieties of climate; there cannot
fail to be a great amount of sickness at certain seasons. But I
may venture to say, after conversing with many members of the
medical profession in America, that I am not singular in the
opinion that much of the disease which does prevail, might be
avoided, if a few common precautions were observed. Greater means
of personal cleanliness, are indispensable to this end; the custom
of hastily swallowing large quantities of animal food, three times
a-day, and rushing back to sedentary pursuits after each meal, must
be changed; the gentler sex must go more wisely clad, and take more
healthful exercise; and in the latter clause, the males must be
included also. Above all, in public institutions, and throughout
the whole of every town and city, the system of ventilation, and
drainage, and removal of impurities requires to be thoroughly
revised. There is no local Legislature in America which may not
study Mr. Chadwick's excellent Report upon the Sanitary Condition
of our Labouring Classes, with immense advantage.
* * * * * *
I HAVE now arrived at the close of this book. I have little reason
to believe, from certain warnings I have had since I returned to
England, that it will be tenderly or favourably received by the
American people; and as I have written the Truth in relation to the
mass of those who form their judgments and express their opinions,
it will be seen that I have no desire to court, by any adventitious
means, the popular applause.
It is enough for me, to know, that what I have set down in these
pages, cannot cost me a single friend on the other side of the
Atlantic, who is, in anything, deserving of the name. For the
rest, I put my trust, implicitly, in the spirit in which they have
been conceived and penned; and I can bide my time.
I have made no reference to my reception, nor have I suffered it to
influence me in what I have written; for, in either case, I should
have offered but a sorry acknowledgment, compared with that I bear
within my breast, towards those partial readers of my former books,
across the Water, who met me with an open hand, and not with one
that closed upon an iron muzzle.
THE END
POSTSCRIPT
AT a Public Dinner given to me on Saturday the 18th of April, 1868,
in the City of New York, by two hundred representatives of the
Press of the United States of America, I made the following
observations among others:
'So much of my voice has lately been heard in the land, that I
might have been contented with troubling you no further from my
present standing-point, were it not a duty with which I henceforth
charge myself, not only here but on every suitable occasion,
whatsoever and wheresoever, to express my high and grateful sense
of my second reception in America, and to bear my honest testimony
to the national generosity and magnanimity. Also, to declare how
astounded I have been by the amazing changes I have seen around me
on every side, - changes moral, changes physical, changes in the
amount of land subdued and peopled, changes in the rise of vast new
cities, changes in the growth of older cities almost out of
recognition, changes in the graces and amenities of life, changes
in the Press, without whose advancement no advancement can take
place anywhere. Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant as to suppose
that in five and twenty years there have been no changes in me, and
that I had nothing to learn and no extreme impressions to correct
when I was here first. And this brings me to a point on which I
have, ever since I landed in the United States last November,
observed a strict silence, though sometimes tempted to break it,
but in reference to which I will, with your good leave, take you
into my confidence now. Even the Press, being human, may be
sometimes mistaken or misinformed, and I rather think that I have
in one or two rare instances observed its information to be not
strictly accurate with reference to myself. Indeed, I have, now
and again, been more surprised by printed news that I have read of
myself, than by any printed news that I have ever read in my
present state of existence. Thus, the vigour and perseverance with
which I have for some months past been collecting materials for,
and hammering away at, a new book on America has much astonished
me; seeing that all that time my declaration has been perfectly
well known to my publishers on both sides of the Atlantic, that no
consideration on earth would induce me to write one. But what I
have intended, what I have resolved upon (and this is the
confidence I seek to place in you) is, on my return to England, in
my own person, in my own journal, to bear, for the behoof of my
countrymen, such testimony to the gigantic changes in this country
as I have hinted at to-night. Also, to record that wherever I have
been, in the smallest places equally with the largest, I have been
received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper,
hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for the
privacy daily enforced upon me by the nature of my avocation here
and the state of my health. This testimony, so long as I live, and
so long as my descendants have any legal right in my books, I shall
cause to be republished, as an appendix to every copy of those two
books of mine in which I have referred to America. And this I will
do and cause to be done, not in mere love and thankfulness, but
because I regard it as an act of plain justice and honour.'
I said these words with the greatest earnestness that I could lay
upon them, and I repeat them in print here with equal earnestness.
So long as this book shall last, I hope that they will form a part
of it, and will be fairly read as inseparable from my experiences
and impressions of America.
CHARLES DICKENS.
MAY, 1868.
Footnotes:
(1) NOTE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION. - Or let him refer to an able,
and perfectly truthful article, in THE FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW,
published in the present month of October; to which my attention
has been attracted, since these sheets have been passing through
the press. He will find some specimens there, by no means
remarkable to any man who has been in America, but sufficiently
striking to one who has not.
End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of American Notes, by Charles Dickens